Part 92: On the Offensive

_{content warning: suicidal ideation, emetophobia}

[BGM: A True Foal]


No!

If you kill one member of a pack, you effectively kill the group...

That can't be right! You guys haven't done anything wrong. To die like this, it's unfair!

Life's unfair.

You two can't seriously be okay with this, can you?

I can't speak for Sheep. However, I have spent much of my life coming to terms with my own mortality and limitations.

It is... unfortunate that my spiritual journey must come to an end here. But... on the whole, I am at peace. Faced with the inevitable, I am able to feel some sense of tranquility.



I really, really, really don't want to die!

But... maybe it's right that I do. So long as I'm a victim, then...

...Forget it. I can't do anything about it, so I have no choice but to accept it.

Sheep. Monkey. I felt tears welling to my eyes. These two did nothing wrong, and yet they'd end up like this? I had no idea how they were taking things so well.

So, did you come here just to tell us that you were going to die?

Ox!

No. I want to avenge Horse. So... for our last round, I wanted to ask if there's any thing we could do to help.



Using my ability, I can move your group four spaces forward. With that, maybe you can win the race.

Assuming Dragon doesn't kill you guys first.

Assuming.

They were offering to help.

I appreciate your help Monkey, I really do. However, could I ask you to use your ability on Pig's pack?

Pig's pack?

They want to come in last place. We're already set to win the race if we keep up at the pace we're going. Even if other groups use Minor Trinkets, they'll just speed us up. The problem is if the 'defeated' pack comes in very last.

There are two ways to prevent that. One, we could steal the tablets from the 'defeated' pack members and forcibly make them move quicker. Or two, we push them past one of the other packs.

Two of them have to move one space every turn. If we combine it with Monkey copying Rooster's ability, we can push them past Dragon's group.

[BGM: Silence]


Good thinking, Mouse. However, we should think about some backup plans.

Backup plans?

it's still–

Just then, I heard the sound of a pin dropping.

*bwam!*



And then, blindness. The world was white. My head was spinning, ears ringing. I was in a dazed state, but I was able to put together one clear thought: Was that a fucking flashbang?! Where in the world did that come from?! I couldn't just stay still. I didn't know what to do, so I just sort of flailed my body in random directions, hoping to scare people off. Then, as I started to come to, I realized what was happening.

[BGM: Fire Breath]


All over the cafeteria, Bunny, Snake, Dragon, Rooster, Pig, and Dog were all assaulting our group. I immediately noticed Snake, holding a scalpel, rushing me. Fuck! I dodged away from him, and started to put as much distance between me and him that I could. Ox seemingly wasn't actually targeted by anyone. ...Sheep, however...

Sorry about this.

AAAIGH!

Dog plunged a bladed weapon right into Sheep's chest, close-range. Sheep! I knew she was going to die any ways, but to end up like that! It was horrible. Dog, you asshole!

But Dog wasn't the only one ambushing us. Rooster grabbed at Monkey, trying to pin her down. However, through an act of seemingly good luck, Monkey was somehow able to slip out of Rooster's grapple. Immediately, she started sprinting down the hall. Rooster chased after her.



The biggest fight, however, was Bunny and Dragon attacking Tiger. Tiger was still affected by the flashbang, but even still, her wild swinging was keeping the two at bay. However, she was definitely losing the fight.

Alright, enough playing around.

Dragon pulled out a knife with her left hand.

Time to eat dirt, shitface!

Dragon charged at Tiger, and swung down on her with the knife. However, luckily, Tiger caught Dragon's wrist.

Ha! What a laugh!

You want to know what happened to the last crazy bitch who came at me with a knife?

Not really.

[BGM: Silence]


Dragon dropped the knife to her right hand, then stabbed down at Tiger's shoulderblade. She landed a solid gash, and Tiger cried out in pain. Using the momentum, Dragon slashed at Tiger again. Tiger moved out of the way, but it still nicked her side. Tiger was pissed. She screamed out, and began swinging wildly.

I'll fucking kill you!!

Tiger, quit it!

She seemed to pause a moment when I said it.

You're too injured! We need to retreat!

I–

Just then, Bunny ran in with a knife of his own. Tiger knocked him away, but got her arm cut in the process. She cried out, then grimaced.

Fine!

She ran over to me. This sight caused Snake to promptly stop his pursuit. Ox also ran over towards me. The three of us ran together, retreating until we were safe in a different nearby room. Then we sat down, held our breath, and hoped the others wouldn't see where we were.

[BGM: Bullfighter]


After a bit, it became clear that we weren't being chased. Thank God for that. We were in a wrecked state.

What the hell was that?! How did someone get a flashbang?

How should I know? I don't even know how Brian would get his hands on that.

Honestly, all things considered, that didn't go as bad as it could have. Sheep's brutal murder aside, the rest of us got out alive. Tiger was deeply injured, though, which was a serious drawback. She tried to bandage her wounds with pieces of her own shirt as much as she could, but she was clearly still injured. In a full-on fight, Dragon or Bunny both had real shots at taking her down now. Things were looking grim.

Shit. What are we going to do now?

I don't know. But it's unlikely we'll be able to win just by participating in the race. We're going to need to take their tablets.

And how are we going to do that? Bunny, Dragon, Snake, Rooster, Pig, Dog. They're all a united front at this point. Meanwhile, it's just the three of us against them. It makes me wonder...

There are six of them. There's three of us. Was it... was it right to fight this? Sure, I was angry for them for what they did. But at this point, twice as many people could live if we just let them work together. If we just sat down and died...



Okay, well, it should be REALLY obvious what the right choice here is.

No. I wasn't going to just lie down and let them kill me. They were the ones who made it a turf war, didn't they? Dragon was the one who started this stupid thing, the one who locked us in a burning room. Snake poisoned Horse to death. Bunny lied to all of us. Dog's pack allied with her, and Dog stabbed Sheep to death. They didn't get to just do horrible things, then have innocent people roll over because they were outnumbered. It wasn't right!

I shouldn't have to give up on living just because more people might live. I didn't know any of those other people. And from what I'd seen, they all appeared to be assholes willing to do whatever to survive. I wasn't going to roll over. Not today.

We can't give up.

Uh, yeah, no one was suggesting that we should.

Good, because I'm not.

Good, because we're not.

Good.

...So, uh, do you have a... a point to this, or–

Here's the plan!



Step one, we split up into different rooms and input our actions for this round. Step two, we look for the others. Step three, we kick their asses!

Okay but how?

I don't know, you figure it out.

Okay, so we don't have a plan.

...Whatever, you're right in that we need to act this round again. Let's try to use the three Trinkets again. That should put us very close to the finish line. I saw Monkey get away, hopefully she'll do what we told her to before dying.

Harsh.

I'm being pragmatic. Tiger, you stay here for now and heal. We need you to be up and able as soon as possible, so try to recover as fast as you can.

Despite the ridiculous request, Tiger nodded determinedly. I... assume she then started to concentrate really hard on healing herself. Ox and I split up into different classrooms and input our actions. This would put us close to the finish line, but we weren't done yet. We then met up outside the classrooms.

[BGM: Silence]


So, what do we do now?

Well, like you said, we should scout around. Surprisingly enough, I think the victorious-defeated alliance has to be on the offense.

How so?

With Monkey's push and both Dog and Pig needing to move at least once space a turn, it's actually going to be somewhat difficult for the defeated pack to guaranteed come in last. Especially if we run interference. I can think of a few plans we could try to make sure they don't come in last.

What are the plans?

Doesn't matter. Because to stop us from doing them, they're probably going to try and prevent us. Right now, they might just be looking for us.

If I was them, I'd have everyone split up and act as scouts. They'd find where we're hiding, then run back to base and report it.

Oh! So if we be really quiet...



We might be able to ambush a scout.

That's great! ...Wait, but we don't have any weapons.

The cafeteria should have knives, right? Let's each grab a knife from there.

Okay.

Like Ox suggested, we went over to the cafeteria and grabbed two sharp kitchen knives. One for each of us. They weren't the best of weapons, but they'd be suitable for self-defense. Wait... was this self-defense? No, now wasn't the time to get caught up in the moral quandaries of it all. I already worked up the determination to survive.

Everything after that... Time passed, the round ended. We were well into Round 6 when I ran into the first enemy.

Ox and I had already begun our silent prowl around the school a while ago. We moved silently, in tandem. We decided to stay on the first floor. That was where they'd probably look for us, after all. The idea that someone would be coming for us was a long shot. As time dragged on, I became more and more skeptical that it would actually happen. But after a while, I suddenly came across a figure.



Rooster!

As soon as he spotted me, I rushed towards him and covered his mouth. He started to struggle against me, but before either of us knew what had happened, Ox had stabbed him from behind. Rooster's eyes shot open, but I had to keep covering his mouth to prevent him from alerting anyone nearby. But...

Having someone die right in front of you felt disgusting. Horrifying, even. ...Eventually, Rooster stopped moving. He was just a corpse, leaning against my hands. I pushed him over, and he dropped to the floor. ...And I promptly walked over to a nearby room and threw up. Nope, nope, I'm not cool with this. Even if I wasn't the one who stabbed him, I was responsible for killing another human being. Rooster. He wasn't the best person, but he didn't deserve...

Mouse, are you okay?

I'm fine, I just... ...I need a minute.

Ox's face also seemed slightly flushed, however, he was holding things together relatively well. Was he seriously not disgusted by this? ...No, he was just holding it together better. Rooster was trying to find us so his group could murder us. I didn't need to feel bad about this. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

After calming down, I walked back out into the hallway.

[BGM: Stampede of Truth]


Better now?

...I guess.

Come on, let's move his body to the cafeteria.

What? Why?

Do you want it just lying in the middle of the hallway?

…

Dragging a body's a lot more work than it looks like. Luckily, Ox and I split the workload. Each of us grabbed a leg, and we dragged him over to the cafeteria. There, we met with Tiger, who had recovered somewhat and was keeping the cafeteria on lockdown.



Hey, you guys are back. Wait, is that...?

...Yeah.

Wow. That's, uh... good work?

You don't need to try and make us feel better about this. Let's just focus on making the most of this.

Well, at least we've got his tablet now, right? That means we can use his ability, which should be useful.

We now had six tablets. Our pack obviously had the three we had started with. Sheep had grabbed Horse's tablet off his body. We had collected Sheep and Horse's tablet off her corpse. And now we had Rooster's.

We can move people four spaces at a time. It'll be great for preventing Dog's pack from coming in last.

That's not the problem here. We could already prevent Dog's pack from being last.



The real benefit was killing someone from the defeated pack. That means that we can instantly execute Dog and Pig by using this tablet, since it would be someone other than Rooster using it.

Dang, instant execution? They really shouldn't have split up like that.

They didn't expect us to be waiting for them. The plan was likely to spot our group, then report back.

So what, are we just going to kill Dog and Pig now?

It's unfortunate, but now it's war.

What else are we going to do?

But wait, won't that be a huge problem for us?

Huh?

If that happens, Dragon's pack will realize what happened. They probably know where Rooster was scouting, and they'll know we were prepared for him. Those three will probably come down as a group, armed to the teeth with weapons, looking to kill us on first sight.



Obviously that's not good. However, it was always going to come to that.

But if it comes to that, I don't think we win. If Tiger was better, then we might stand a chance. But she's still in no fighting shape.

Hey, I can still rumble!

Tiger tried pumping her arm up in encouragement, but instantly recoiled. No, she definitely wasn't able to 'rumble'. The only reason she wasn't already on the floor was pure adrenaline.

Snake isn't exactly a scary fighter, but Dragon's clearly experienced with combat, and Bunny's a literal cop. Ox is far from an intimidating fighter, and I'm still a girl in college. If it's a straight-up brawl, we lose.

So what are you suggesting?

I don't know, I'm just saying we should think about things while we still have the initiative. Right now, we control how this battle's going to continue. We should use that.

Man, if only we could get Dog to try fighting Snake. I bet Dog could take Snake.

Well, Dog's already lost. If he's going to die anyways, maybe we could convince him to side with us.

I don't think so, he's too...



Ox trailed off, instantly struck by a thought.

Oh, this is going to be good.

What is?

Ox. He's had an idea. I bet it's going to turn things around.

Oh! That's great. What's the idea, Ox?

Hold on, let him ride it out. These things don't come fully baked.

Okay, okay, I have an idea.

Yeah, we know.

Huh?

He wasn't listening to us. Ox, what's your idea?

Ok, well, this might sound really dumb, but hear me out.

Sure thing.



Why don't we try holding Rooster hostage?