EX R2: Coffee and TV P3

Tray had just enough time to whisper, “Oh,” before three events occurred in succession.

First, a shrill scream sounded from Nick’s door to the freezer and a young girl burst out into the chamber.

Second, TK aimed and squeezed the trigger, only to have her aim spoiled at the last moment as Rex the typewriter smashed into her ribs. She did, however, notice the flash of purple that darted before the bullet.

And finally, with the sudden increase in temperature and weight, the ice split.

The room filled with a terrible, deafening cacophony of crashes, screams, and crunches. Heedless of danger, the redheaded girl dashed out onto the ice and skidded to a stop on her knees.

“Nick!” she screamed, grabbing at his shoulder. The bright crimson of his hopes and dreams stained her beautiful white coat, but she didn’t care. “Nicholas!”

The buckling of ice drove Tray to his feet, but it was too late. Throughout the freezer, the floor had shattered into patterns like a mad jigsaw puzzle, great masses of ice floating here and there interspersed with smaller chunks. His was perhaps ten feet across and shared with a bloody corpse, a teenaged girl, and a growing crack down the middle.

Fawn stopped shaking the poet’s shoulder and slowly scooted away before scrambling up, sudden revulsion clenching her stomach. She didn’t care that the world shattered around her; Nick was dead. Dear god, was it her fault? She hadn’t gotten there fast enough, she should have known that they went in the wrong direction, known that Nick had stumbled down the left slope, she should have hurried and tried to keep warm without conjuring all the rest of the clothing, and oh Lord have mercy now Nick was dead.

Faintly, in the back of her mind a voice whispered, Well, at least that’s one less person competing for the prize.

She felt ill.

Fawn might have been sick if not for the sudden lunging of a fish. A very large fish. A very large fish with teeth to match. A very large grey fish with equally large and unfishy teeth approximately five feet away from her.

Tray gave an undignified yelp of surprise as what appeared to be the unholy lovechild of a piranha and great white shark on steroids threw itself halfway onto his ice floe. Said chunk of ice tilted dangerously and deposited both him and the girl onto their backsides and into a lazy slide toward the water and fish. He narrowed his eyes and whipped out the pistol, landing two bullets in the monster's head before it slid back off into the chilly grey water. The ice smacked dangerously back down, nearly knocking the girl and Nicholas’ remains off. He crouched and scanned the water intently, tragedy driven from his mind to make room for survival instinct.

He caught sight of movement in around the ice and swore loudly. Instead of just one, at least half a dozen dark shapes circled wildly around them like sharks. The monster he’d shot appeared to be flailing beneath their masses. In fact, they seemed to be attracted to its…

“Oh shit,” he groaned.

Fawn gasped and whispered, “Oh no. Heaven above, they want to eat him.”

Tray wasted no time. He turned, snatched up the small rodent that had skittered out of her now-dead master’s pocket, dropped her into his own, and made to leap onto the closest bit of ice.

“You’re gonna leave him?”

Against all better judgment, Tray turned at her strained whisper. “He’s dead.” Any fondness he’d felt for the poet had vanished along with his heartbeat. Now he was just another dead body.

“But—but his body…!” Even though she knew that there was nothing else to be done, she remained obstinate, refusing to accept it. “There has to be something!”

Tray shrugged and turned back, judging the distance. He wanted to not care, to simply leave her to die if that’s what she wanted. Maybe even shoot her and leave two bodies for the monsters, if that would placate them long enough for him to escape.

But…her expression. Despite the violent, jarring bumps from the monsters beneath the ice, it stopped him. The shock written on her pale, stricken face and the way her eyes had widened in disbelief and confusion was so familiar. Her hands pressed tightly against her mouth, trying to keep in the screams. He knew that feeling. The numbness and lack of comprehension, the sense of being in a nightmare; that it wasn’t real. That everything would be better in a few minutes if one could just wait it out.

Tray hesitated. It would be so much easier to kill her.

He turned. “Come on. Unless you wanna die.”

“What?” her voice had gone breathy, strained.

“This’ll tip over. They’ll eat you. Or you’ll freeze.” He stuck out a hand. “I’m going.”

She stared, uncomprehending, at him. How could she just abandon Nicholas…? Suddenly, a particularly violent bump against the ice sent both of them stumbling, Tray swearing at the pain in his shoulder. That was all it took for her survival instincts to kick back in and begin running at double speed.

This was not the world she knew. If she got hurt, there was nobody to step in and pause the game to call foul, no hospital to rush to. It was life or death, and frankly, she preferred the former. Survival was her top priority, and once the giant fish finished their frenzy below, there would be nothing to distract them from the three tasty-looking morsels floating helplessly above.

Fawn held her ground, locking eyes with the man across the ice. He was with the woman that had slaughtered Nicholas; that much was clear. But he was her only chance. Staying would mean not returning to her family and friends, the people she cared about more than anything. Her hand touched the newly-conjured shotgun hanging on her back.

She strode forward and did not turn back.


TK’s circumstances were altogether rather different and not nearly as clean-cut. In fact, she had no idea of what the hell to do. She’d never battled a typewriter before, you see.  

Rex launched himself at her over and over, throwing himself fully into each onslaught with the mindlessness of a rabid dog. There was almost a desperation to it, a rage that the squat brass machine couldn’t vocalize. It was quite clear to TK that this thing wanted her dead and did not plan on stopping until that became a reality.

She screamed in frustration and pain as he collided with her ribs yet again and sent her stumbling back. She’d shot the little fucker three times, but it wouldn’t stop moving. Nothing else in her inventory would so much as irritate the possessed machine; that much she knew already. He kept forcing her back until there was no more ice to tread upon.

She leapt straight back, touching upon solid matter by blind luck. The fragment of ice rocked violently, but she paid no mind and scrambled back as Rex cannoned across the gap. He leapt at her again, apparently making for her throat. The sharp metal sliced through her hands as they flew up to ward him off, and she continued to stumble backwards as the assault continued.

Rex appeared to be quite content barreling into TK over and over until she keeled over from internal bleeding.  He slammed into her ribs once more, and she swore loudly as new bruises formed, unable to ward him off. The bastard kept throwing itself at her, completely unfazed and too quick to avoid, especially with the risk of slipping into the freezing water.

She turned and simply ran, leaping over the gap between hers and the chunk of ice closest. It tilted sharply and she nearly slipped off before sinking her fingers into the pockmarks and clawing her way back up. Once safely lodged in the middle, she spun onto her back, gun raised, to face the metal beast once more.

What she hadn’t counted on was Rex already flying at her in midleap.

He crashed directly onto her torso and she immediately knew something was wrong. The first thing to tip her off was the loud crunch that came from the vicinity of her ribs.

She screamed, not caring who heard, and smashed her left forearm hard enough into the little brass machine to dislodge it (not to mention put said arm out of commission). Of course, this did little to discourage Rex. TK had enough time to leap up and avoid the hunk of metal as it attempted to trip her before it launched its next assault.

Then, an idea occurred to her.

An idea so simple that she felt an exceedingly strong desire to shoot herself in the foot for not realizing it earlier.

Or maybe just shoot something. But that was nothing unusual.

She scooted slowly back, keeping her distance from the advancing typewriter. Rex jerked forward slightly and would have had a silent laugh at her flinch save for the fact that his master had just been slaughtered. While Rex's normal personality was nothing short of belligerent, the need to kill had never been so powerful before.

“Come on, you bloody little wanker,” she whispered.

Like any self-respecting typewriter, Rex took offense at this and charged. TK held her breath, waited for the exact moment, and jumped forward.

Rex had not expected this. He swung around, little brass feet scrabbling against the ice, but Newton’s laws still applied in the Underworld. An object in motion stayed in motion, especially when that object happened to be a large, heavy typewriter barreling around on extremely slippery ice at inhuman speeds.

And just like that, Rex slipped over the edge and into the water. His feet peddled madly in anguish, but it made no difference and he plummeted like a stone. The typewriter continued to struggle until the icy cold seeped into his metal body and rendered him unable to move.

With scarcely a bubble, Nicholas Lear’s faithful hound disappeared from the world just as his master had.

TK smiled. Her large chunk of ice slowly quit its rocking and at the most leisurely of paces, she drew out her gun and took aim at the redhead with Tray. One bullet, and then everything would be taken care of.

Karma, however, had reviewed its policies and decided that simply humiliating herself and falling down the slope did not nearly suffice.

Something very large and very purple slammed into her at very high speeds.

TK’s head cracked against the ice and she saw no more.


“Almost there,” Fawn gasped breathlessly, eyeing the still-solid ice beside the doors. Tray crossed the gap and landed beside her, causing the slab of frozen water to rock violently. For a moment, both windmilled frantically to keep their balance, Tray not without a soft string of profanities that surely would have impressed TK. As soon as the danger appeared to have passed, both made to keep running until a tremendous impact knocked them off their feet.

Fawn shrieked as she slid to the edge where one of the shark-like monsters lurked. Tray’s right hand shot out and seized her slim forearm to haul her roughly back and up to her feet.

“C’mon,” he gasped, stumbling along and leaping to the next. While his voice was strained, his expression remained indifferent, deadpan. Before he could regain his balance, though, his heroics were spoiled by a livid (and somewhat jealous) violet imp.

Possum slammed bodily into the assassin, fury practically dripping off of him. This piece of filth, this ignorant swine had touched his Host, had looked upon her with threats in his mind. This was inexcusable. He snarled savagely, pulling up an excessively confused and rather frightened Tray by the throat. This man, barely more than a child to his mind, stank of blood and gunpowder.

The bullet in lodged in his torso burned, but it was nothing more than a trivial irritation. Without even deigning to speak, he hurled the mortal toward the chamber’s frozen wall some distance away. The man dropped limply onto the ice beside it and did not stir. Possum’s lips curled upward and he dashed to rescue his Host before becoming aware of the hot, bitter waves of fury radiating through their bond.

“Possum!” she cried in a shocked sort of rage. “What’re you…he was helping me!”

“Did you not sense his hostility, my sweet?” he purred, reaching out to scoop her up. “His partner slaughtered your friend; did you expect him to treat you any kinder?”

She stepped back and her foot slid off the edge, but before she could even begin to fall Possum had her in his arms. He darted across the floating steps and slid to a graceful stop upon solid ground. She immediately began to wriggle away, giving off spikes of reproach that had nothing to do with the new blue bloodstains upon her coat. Possum couldn’t help but indulge in a wave of irritation as he set her down. He had just saved her, and all she cared about was this stranger?

This was confirmed when she shot off to his still form without so much as a word. He growled softly, not enjoying the coldness drifting off of her nor her concern for the man. He quickly quashed the emotions plucking at his heart as he realized that his human would not allow him to dispose of these mortals as he had planned to. Perhaps he could spur them into violence; that appeared to be a simple feat from the glimpse he’d taken of the female. Fawn could not balk then, if he slit their throats in retaliation…but that would still displease her greatly.

At the sudden relief that flooded through their bond, he focused on his Host’s location once more, only to distastefully discover that the stranger had sat up with assistance from the girl. A pity; why hadn’t he put just a bit more force into his throw? If the impact with the wall had smashed the man's spinal column, it certainly would have made things easier. Possum’s breath hissed out between his teeth as she hovered over him. With the man’s continued survival, she would just want to go along with him as she had the poet. But then there would be the woman to deal with, and that would be one too many members on a team.

Possum stopped.

Now there was an idea.


TK slowly came to her senses.

Cold.

That was the first to register. Her back felt frozen, her head ached, and the gashes across her back burned. To put it simply, everything.

Fucking.

Hurt.

TK slowly sat up and was nearly sick as the ice rocked madly. She closed her eyes, counted to ten, and stood. The world spun a bit but quickly righted itself. She scanned across the room to locate her companion and let out a growl.

There Tray was, lying motionless against a wall. Brilliant. Beside him crouched the redheaded slag and a few feet away…

She snarled.

And standing right there, casual as anything, was the purple fucker that already had reserved a spot on her kill list for the duel offenses of not dying when she shot him and then attacking her.

Her lip gave a rather unfeminine twitch, quickly followed by her hands, which impressively managed to twitch all the way to her gun and bring it up to aim.

He turned and his animalistic glare stopped her short. “Good of you to join us.”

She did not lower the weapon. “Excuse me?” she snarled.

The smile he gave was like looking into a mirror; all teeth and no sincerity. Well, like looking in the mirror save for the fact that she happened to be neither purple nor fanged. And, while nothing if not lovely to behold, TK didn’t posses such feral, otherworldly beauty. Despite his exotic coloring, the dusky markings scattered across his body, and the tail, and his new bullet wound, the imp was, in a word, gorgeous.

“Perhaps my earlier actions were a bit…hasty. Would you care to discuss our situation in more levelheaded terms?” Possum could taste the malice rolling off of her, the sweetness of betrayal and lies. He liked it enormously.

“Perhaps you’d care to stick your fancy words up your ass.”

His smile was no longer quite as disarming. “I have a proposal,” he stated loudly enough to be heard by Fawn and Tray.

Fawn glanced up and stiffened at the sight of TK leaping onto solid ground. She was the one who had slipped out the opposite doorway, strode carefully across the ice and then blown Nicholas’ mind out onto it. She…oh dear Lord, Nicholas was dead. She’d seen him die, seen the blood and gore and bits of skull and-

Tray groaned softly and broke the reverie of frenzied thoughts. Fawn gently placed a hand to his back, helping prop him against the chilly wall beside them. She forced herself to take a deep, shaky breath and shove away the sickening thoughts. They continued to circle like vultures as she turned back to Possum.

Both assassins eyed him warily, TK’s finger not moving from the trigger. Tray simply stared, breathing in ragged gasps as air forced its way into his abused lungs and torso. After his involuntary encounter with the wall, he would be surprised if at least one rib hadn’t cracked.

Having a cute girl fawn over for him was sort of a nice compensation, though.

“You’d rather this not turned towards violence, correct, dearheart?”

Tray gave a snort of laughter, which rather hurt. TK barely refrained from the same action.

Fawn’s voice sounded exceedingly small. “Yes.”

Possum’s gaze, locked onto the woman before him, was thoughtful. “You did slaughter our companion, but if the lady wills it…”

TK glared, itching to pull the trigger though she knew it would be useless. “Get on with it,” she growled. “If you’re with him, you’re our opponents. And if you don’t say something intelligent within the next ten seconds I will put a bullet through both your heads.”

“How charming,” the imp smiled.

Her face burned; this freak was mocking her. She had killed for less than that.

“But you’re correct; as Nicholas’ companions we are now your opponents for this round. We were simply…running behind.”

Fawn’s eyes widened slightly and she opened her mouth to speak, but the glance Possum shot her stopped the action. Nicholas had claimed victory in the previous chamber. Sure, they had agreed to work together, but Nicholas had left the room first, key in hand. Technically, he’d won. However, Possum had realized that these two entrants had no way of knowing.

She still had a chance to win.

“Y-yeah, we took a wrong turn and couldn’t find Nick. We went the wrong way, but we were with him,” she added, suddenly paranoid. What if they realized? The woman would surely attack, and then Possum would retaliate…

“So what are you trying to get at?” TK snapped.

“Perhaps you would be interested in working together to achieve our common goal.”

TK’s aim faltered for a moment before she snapped back to attention. “What?”

“I agree with Fawn; I would hate to see bloodshed if it could be avoided.” The sarcasm in his voice was two inches away from becoming tangible. “So then, perhaps a lovely woman as intelligent as yourself would recognize the benefits to be reaped from combining your forces with ours.”

Tray noticed his exclusion and felt rather left out.

“Yes, why don’t we work together?” Fawn suggested brightly.

TK stared at the girl and imp down the bridge of her nose and curled her lip. “What ‘benefits would we reap’?”

Possum sent her his most charming smile, which may or may not have rivaled many, many Hollywood stars’. “Meaning no offense, my dear, but my senses far rival your own, as do my physical attributes. I have much knowledge of the Underworld, as it is my home. Additionally, this map adorning my back can insure that we will never become lost. As for my Host’s abilities…well, I certainly wouldn’t want to brag. Perhaps you’d like to add something, dearheart?”

“Well,” she faltered, self-conscious with the three gazes fixed upon her. “Well yeah, we wouldn’t get lost…and I’m, erm, I can shoot pretty well. And…we’d have Possum, so…we wouldn’t…get…”

“What?” TK spat.

Very slowly, Fawn’s eyes swiveled to meet Possum’s. “We wouldn’t get lost.”

“Is something the matter, sweetling?”

When Fawn replied, it was barely audible. “You let Nick die.”

“I beg your-”

“You knew the right way,” she gasped. “Didn’t you? Possum? Oh, oh dear Lord, you did.”

For once, Possum had nothing to say.

“That’s a map on your back. Possum, you knew! You knew the way to go! How…?” her head was shaking. “How could you?”

Slowly, and not with nearly as much confidence, Possum began, “I don’t think that is entirely-”

“Don’t lie to me!” Fawn was on her feet, face as red as her hair, sending veritable waves of pounding fury through their bond. Her small fists trembled beside her, unable to contain the sheer force of her rage.

The rage that was, Possum realized, lined with hatred.

His stomach curled.

The imp had known full well that she would react in a manner like so, but the intensity of it took his breath away. Here she was, a tiny girl-child, his girl-child, looking upon him with…hate?

Only soft splashes from the frothy now-red water broke the silence.

“Possum…” Fawn’s voice came out harsh, rough against her throat as it dammed her tears. “As your Host, what will you do if I tell you to leave?”

His nostrils flared delicately, the only sign of his turmoil within. “If my Host orders it, so it shall be.”

“Then go.”

Possum’s upper lip twitched and threatened to morph his expression into a snarl, but it instead curled into an almost pained smile. “As you wish.”

A sudden burst of fire caused TK to jump and very nearly pull the trigger. When the smoke had cleared, there stood the same white-haired imp, the only difference being about five and a half feet in height. The miniature imp quickly turned and strode away with all the dignity of his full-sized incarnation. This effect was, however, rather ruined when he hopped onto a nearby ice floe and looked to be some sort of mutated frog.

For a moment, worries of the giant fish-monsters crossed Fawn’s mind but she promptly ignored them. He was a lying, backstabbing, heartless creature, but this was his world. Possum could take care of himself.

But…can I?

Fawn glanced at the pistol still gripped in the British woman’s hand. Perhaps sending her only chance in this insane tournament away hadn’t been such a bright idea after all. For a moment she simply breathed. In and out, in and out. She could control that, at least.

Fawn squeezed her eyes briefly shut, took one more breath, and pretended to give a school presentation. “My name is Fawn Schuh and I want to come with you. I may not be able to offer much, but I’m fast and I can defend myself to the best of my abilities. If we work together, I’m sure we can find a fair way to decide who wins the prize. And…even if I can’t bring back…even if I don’t get the prize, I don’t want to stay here. I want to see my family. ...I want to go home.”

TK stared at her, eyes half-lidded in apparent boredom and apathy. She checked on the imp’s location, wondering if she could shoot the girl yet, but he apparently saw fit to take his time. She toyed with the idea of allowing the girl to come and using her as bait, but that could become awfully messy, both figuratively and literally. No, it would be far easier to kill her as soon as possible. She opened her mouth to reply, but another beat her to it.

“Okay,” Tray replied.

TK’s mouth dropped open and she whirled to face him. He stared dully back up at her, apparently not caring that to her any sort of decision-making on his part was unacceptable. She’d come to crush Tray, not allow him to make friends with every sappy little teeny-bopper they ran across. How dare he act as though he had the semblance of a spine?

Fawn’s eyes lit up like a child allowed to stay up an hour later. “I…okay! Okay, let’s go!”

With all of Death’s usual subtlety, the lights completely switched off. They could practically hear his voice ordering them to hurry up and get on with the show because dear god it was boring.

Tray actually felt rather glad for the inky black, since now nobody could see his silent scream of pain as he clambered back up. The feeling was clearly not mutual, though, as made obvious by Fawn’s gasp. Only two softly glowing doorways remained lit; one jade green and the other a warm goldenrod.

With all the careful consideration of a skilled strategist, Tray decided that the green door, being closer, was obviously the best choice. He felt a small hand seek out his wrist and fought the instinctual urge to pull away. At least this time he was not alone in the darkness.

“Come on,” he mumbled, not wanting to speak above a whisper. It felt like being in a library, ever-fearful of a bookkeeper descending upon any vagrant that dared raise his voice. Except, of course, the monsters in the Labyrinth were a bit more frightening, unless one had a strange, private phobia of librarians, which would be another story altogether.

“We’re going through the green door,” TK snapped, damned if she wasn’t going to have some say.

Tray gave a one-shouldered shrug, invisible in the dark, and carefully climbed through the curtain of green wire vines. Fawn followed closely behind, unwilling to drift too far away from the only bit of safety she now had to cling to.

TK clenched her teeth, nearly trembling with fury, and jammed the gun back into its holster. She’d kill that little slut as soon as they were safely in the next hallway; teach him a lesson.

Fists clenched beside her and mind bent on revenge, she stomped toward the door. Distracted as she was (not to mention the levels of stealth of a certain imp), it came as no surprise that she failed to notice the figure stalking behind her.

The purple figure that had returned to his prior height of six feet.

Five needle-sharp points pricked into her throat and a hot, moist breath beside her ear indulgently whispered, “Won’t you stay for a few minutes?”