croak of dawn | [oswald v mutts, day two]

sketches

The inky night sky domes the white-washed world. Everything constructed out of a thick, heavy lines that blob somewhat in the middle. Two dark shapes huddle beneath the broken walls of a shipping container that has been torn asunder and eviscerated. One is bulky and mechanical, crouched like a frog, its rounded abdomen leaned towards the kid huddling beside it. The child cradles a large gun in his arms. A stream of light cuts through the darkness, reflecting with wide eyes. Music notes stab through the air, jagged, broken.

Faces flash in the sky. One of the careers. A girl from Three. And then Celeste.

an animation

Her face lingers a long time in the sky. Literally shining now, a being of light, framed in an opal ring -- a spirit fading, becoming a haze, the dark of the sky bleeding through, until its consumed her. And her face is gone. All the light's gone.  There's just his eyes and the specks of star-light.

Without realizing it, he takes hold of his arm and strokes it. Feels the warmth of his skin. Warmth that means vitality, that means blood is coursing still. Contained within him. A precious thing, one would think. But maybe that's subjective. Maybe he was the only one who cared.

Wrapping himself up in his jacket, he slumps to the ground, hugging Fun Gun close to him.

His small hand creeps across the sand, feeling it. Sprawling across it, lengthening. Then the fingers curl. The pointer extends, strokes a line across the sand. Moves, leans aside. A dot. Lifts his entire hand, strokes a circle. It is too dark to see what he is drawing. His eyelids slip closed. His hand continues to move, as though of its own desire. The grit of the sand rubs caresses its skin. He sighs deeply through his nose. Eyelids part, only a little. As the shapes become more complex. Stranger. No reason -- only the feeling of something being created. Of a mark being made. Of familiarity. Of childhood.

a rotoscope

The sunlight glints across Oz's body as he sleeps, hands curled before him like a fetus's. Fingers flex open and closed, like a cat kneading a pillow before it sleeps. The floor of the Loft is cleaner than usual. His eyelids flicker, he scrunches up his body for a moment before he relaxes and his eyes open.

"Oz."

Blinking, he twists around. Snuff crouches beside him. Eyes wide open, the whites exaggerated as he stares.

"I told you."

He lifts up his arm. A piece of shrapnel, shaped like a fang, is in his hand.

"WAIT--" Oz throws his hands up as Snuff thrusts the shrapnel into his chest.

A scream pierces the air.

an animation

"Snuff--" he gasps as his eyes bulge open, his body flinching, the heel of his hand digging into the strange doodles he'd left in the sand some hours ago.

Screams pierce the air, shrill and savage. He can no longer tell if they're animal screams or human's. After the Bloodbath, they both sound alike. He lifts himself up, glancing around -- somehow, it's as though the night's gotten darker. He remembers a trick the manual mentioned. "Lights!"

A small high-beam flickers alive from the mech's chest. There's supposed to be two beams, but one of the lights is cracked and the filling's scooped out. Dozens of intense, black eyes gleam at Oz. Tiny. The light washes out their bumpy, gray skin, so that they look almost sooty. Their throats swell, up and down , practically bouncing as they huff through their wide rhinoceros nostrils. Some are bleeding; their horns are broken; purple bruises swell across their flesh. Yet, as Oz peers at them, noticing how they were barely larger than his hand, his face softens. He smiles.

The largest one hops forward, her clumsy webbed feet flopping across the sand. She holds her head high, proudly, throat pulsing as she grunts rhythmically. Oz chuckles. They're too small to hurt him -- besides, how dangerous can vaguely frog-shaped things be? Maybe if they were the size of actual rhinoceroses, he would be worried. But c'mon. Look at the little cuties and their neat little throats! Look at their dumb feet! Look at the sleepy little rhino eyes! What's there to worry about it!

"Hey there, buddy," he speaks warmly, as though he's talking to a puppy. He lowers his hand down, hoping the Mama Rhog to jump aboard. He knew Av had a pet mutt. Oz wouldn't mind one of those... "Yer a funky lil dude, aren't you?"

It sits there a moment, considering him with those beady rhino eyes. Its throat swells, wider than ever, as its little mouth gapes as wide as it can: "SQUEAK!'

Oz gasps, eyes widening, struck dumb with awe. "Oh my god, you squeak like a chew toy..."

The rhogs behind her take up her call, squeaking with all their little might.

"Yes, you're all cute lil squeakies," Oz assures them, not wanting them to think the big one was going to get all the attention, "You're all adorable, I knooooHOLY SHIT!"

The big one flings herself at him, the horn poised at his face. He barely has time to flinch back, avoiding a horn in the eye. Their high-pitched squeaks punching the air, the rhogs descend, webbed feet flopping all over, horns menacing his ankles, some nudging his mech with their horns, as though trying to figure out how to tip over-- "Nonono, that's my STUFF!" He tries to come to its aid, but the squeaking around him gets louder. The rhogs have formed some sort of military formation around him, separating him from it -- if he wanted to go forward, he'd have to step into a mass of rabid rhogs, all eager to stab their horns into him.

Oz goes pale. Those squeaks weren't cute. They were, in fact, the sonorous war-cries of some very angry rhogs.

Ferocious.

He glances down at the Fun Gun in his hand. At the rhogs at his feet, pushing themselves up with their forearms in that way frogs do to establish dominance. At his mech, helpless, besought with savage squeaking rhino-froggies.

He doesn't have a choice.

Gritting his teeth, he takes his gun by the barrel and swings it down.

[attacks rhogs, blunt]
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[Broken right foot?, 6.5 damage]

Goddammit! These things were supposed to be cute!

The way their bodies squelch as the butt of the gun slam into them, how their little bones crunch...Oz gags as he blunders forward, wincing as though he's the one getting slammed across the head with a gun. Momentum and adrenaline alone carries him through, over their broken bodies, towards the mech. The second unit -- the ones trying to tip over his mech -- are ready for him, alerted by their leader's call, their horns raised. They leap for him.

They're brave little guys. He's so much bigger than them, and yet they still go for him. But then again -- they're just mutts. Some mutts are about as robotic as Oz's mech. Controlled by some scientist's formula or a Gamemaker's algorithm. Hard to tell sometimes. So maybe they're incapable of bravery.

He hopes they're incapable of bravery. Or feeling pain.

"Sorry little guys," he whimpers.

[attacks rhogs, blunt]

v4nUaaas50blunt

[2.0 damage]

One hand slams against the mech. The sound, the impact, the feel of its smooth metal shell against Oz's palm is assuring, if only for a moment. He sets both hands on it, ready to pull himself up and clamber in--

Another of the rhogs' shrill cries rings out. But it's different times. Throatier, more like a croak than a squeak, and two-toned. Oz notices the slight difference and by instinct rather than sense, he turns to look over his shoulder for just a moment, to see what it is.

For a fraction of a heartbeat, there is a blur leaping up to him. In the other fraction, there is just pain.

a sketch

Pain is a red color. Hot, jarring. Rather like blood, but brighter. The eyes see it and they panic. Burns into the eyes, as pain burns into the body. Red seems to glow by its own accord, as fire glows by its own accord. Pain does too, but the glowing is more sensual. More like a radiation.

an animation

Blood specks his neck, his shirt, his shoulder. The fringes of the rip in his shirt. He crashes backward into the mech, crying out, hand pressing deep into his chest. A long, thin line slashes across it; it seems to glow a bright red color. The blood is warm. Warm enough it seems to burn.

His eyes sting, the image of the rhog leader warps and shifts. Sniffing, he rubs his sleeve across his eyes. The initial shock is collapsing. His hands tremble. His face burns bright red. His eyes are red.

"FUCK YOU!" he barks, raising his foot to stomp at the rhog leader, like a child having a tantrum.

[attacks rhog, unarmed]

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[2.0]

In his outrage, he managed to crush one of them, but not the one he wanted. The big one that kept staring him down with her beady, challenging eyes -- the one with his blood dripping down her horns. He stared back, chest heaving. Betrayal burned within him, almost as painful as the gash across his chest. He had so many plans for these rhogs. He was going to feed them fat, wriggly worms. Give soft, moist earth to brumate in. A green pond to splash and croak in. Pets every morning, flies every evening. It was going to be great.

And yet here they were.

Killing each other.

He was such an idiot for thinking they would make good pets, holy fucking shit.

[attacks rhog, blunt]

OkVwIzZK82blunt

[0.0]

Fun Gun bounces against the ground, bucking in Oz's grasp. He hisses through gnashed teeth, staggering, tightening his grasp on the gun. These things were greased lightning. One moment, they were blurs rocketing through his field of vision, the next they could be behind him, beside him...His eyes swivel around, bulging from their sockets. Regret seeps into him. Every single decision he's made since the anthem suddenly becomes a terrible idea to him. It had all been so stupid! He'd underestimated these rhogs, the arena in general, maybe even overestimated himself, if that were possible with his current situation with self-respect. Maybe the farce with his Fun Gun had made him lighten up, maybe he'd put too much stock in himself once he survived the Bloodbath after breaking a career's bones. Either way, should have been more prepared, should've known better. Slept in his mech, even, no matter how uncomfortable that could be. Kept his knife on him. The more he overthinks it, the more he wants to bash his head in.

He turns around, trying to swallow the regurgitation of self-doubt that tightens his throat. Locks eyes with the enemy. Which immediately struck him as strange, to think of a stupid rabid animal as an "enemy." Or to even look into that animal's eyes, as though it were a person. He blinks, considering her. The way the beady eyes slant, curl up a little at the corner. Looks kind of like one of those psycho tributes when they're on their murder sprees. How the throat pulses with each rhythmic croak -- a familiar rhythm -- deep, throaty -- like a...like a...like laughter.

The rhog looks him in the eyes and laughs at him.

Any icy hand seizes Oz by the heart. His gun droops in his grasp as his eyes widen till they can widen no more. What is this, a nightmare? Was this real? Was he going nuts? He can't decide, the world seems to whirl round and round like a top, he takes a big step back, another one. Brain faltering as it tries to confirm with his eyes what the fuck they're looking at. And he's certain he's looking at a rhog that's laughing at him.

How...How could some stupid, small animal-thing have that level of understanding...

He twists around and bolts towards his mech, abandoning whatever righteous bravado that sparked within him when the rhog alpha slashed his chest. There were guns on the mech, he knew; the manual said. How to operate them? Hell if he knows. What moves him is the beating in his ears, his heart, the pounding in his brain as its primitiveness screams into him that what he jut bore witness should not exist nor should be allowed to exist.

There's a flicker of movement across the mech. Again, one moment, the blur of motion -- bouncing off the mech, towards his face, he barely has time to shut his eyes instinctively -- the next the rhog reappearing. Horn grazing his cheek, just enough for blood to dribble out. He winces but keeps going, throwing himself at it, grappling it with his hands and hoisting him into the cockpit head-first, legs flailing and kicking wildly, chest thumping into the chair, face nearly flattening against the floor of the cockpit. The burning pain in his chest flashes white-hot heat, but for some reason his mind doesn't process it, only tells itself that it hurts there, and there's nothing more to it. He glances around quickly. The cockpit's still open; the rhogs could hop inside any heartbeat. It doesn't matter, it seems to him, what to press, only that he press it. There -- bright red, shiny button, sticking out of a joystick. Surely that must do something!

[attacks rhogs, knife (dagger mech upgrade)]

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[3.5]