Part 3/3 of Winter, Exotwo, and Aeternum collab.
Hunter raises an eyebrow at Zyth’s reaction. She’s not a big fan of killing, but they’ve done it before. Six times. Three times to fit in with Epics who thought her dogs were a power like this right now. Twice to defend themselves from humans. Once out of mercy.
And Pocket.
It wasn’t murder. It was never alive. It’s just another part of us, she tries to justify it. The others stay quiet. It’s still there. We could wake it up, if we wanted to.
We’re not going to, Leaf says.
“Sheltered, much?”
“Only slightly,” Zyth shoots back. “You? Were you raised in the dirt?”
“If you want, I can kill both of you and leave you in the dirt,” Ally threatens.
“Yeah, obviously,” she says to Zyth. To Ally, she asks. “What did I do? I’ve never associated with this fool in my entire life.”
“You know this man is an Epic, and t-h-e-r-e-f-o-r-e, he is annoying,” Ally says to Hunter, “and I want to kill everyone right now, but of course the m-y-s-t-e-r-i-o-u-s Epic won’t let me.”
He glares at Hunter. “Well of course you’ve never seen me. I obviously haven’t seen you, because you are easily spottable with all that idiocy you have.”
“He’s not-not letting you,” Hunter remarks. “He’s just a bit confused. As has been established.”
You are digging us even deeper into this hole, you know.
What happened to “get food and shelter?”
Not like this.
“It seems that your lack of intelligence is rubbing off on me.”
“Shut up before I kill both of you”
“Try it,” Zyth dares Sparkly Evil Rainbow Epic. He’s already annoyed at Hunter.
He immediately regrets that. Zyth, you idiot!
“But that won’t get us anywhere and will just attract attention.”
A spear of prismatic energy nearly pierces Zyth as she says, “I told you I could.”
Zyth flinches. “Seems you missed.”
“Probably won’t next time!”
“Don’t bother. He’s probably got some sort of dead man’s switch. Not worth the possibility that we’d all be blown to high hell.”
She looks directly at her dogs while she says that.
“Oh, so you do know.”
“Not a very well kept secret.”
Hunter did not, in fact, know.
“I don’t get weird r-e-f-e-r-e-n-c-e-s like that.”
“Do you want to explain, Zyth?”
“Why don’t you do the honours instead?”
“Because I’m curious about how bad a liar you really are,” she says, even as Leaf hisses reminders to change the subject. “Also, because if we keep standing around and talking, I want to tie up my dogs somewhere.”
“Me? A liar?” He feigns surprise. “We should get moving. People are looking at us weirdly since we’re not the most conspicuous group around. Especially with Rainbow Sparkles over there.”
“I can kill them for you!” Ally says brightly.
“If you touch a single hair on any of their heads, I will end you in the most painful way you could imagine. I will tear you to pieces faster than you could fight back, and I do not care if we die in the process. They are our territory,” Hunter says, with a fierceness and brutality behind the words that speaks of times they’ve had to follow through on the threat.
She steps forward, steel in her words, and her dogs tense, sensing their master’s distress. She would order them on her within a second.
“Yep, people are looking at us weirdly,” Zyth says, stepping in between Hunter and her no-longer-cute dogs and Ally. “Now, let’s not tear each other to pieces because then someone will have the unfortunate job of having to clean that up.”
“I’d be worth it to kill them.” Ally decides, “but we need to get going. Like now. Right Zyth?”
“If you intend on infringing on what is ours, then we will take our power and leave.”
Finally.
“Uh, what.”
“You and what power?”
Leaf takes over and leaves, bringing the dogs with them.
“Wait, come baaack here!” Ally shouts running.
“It’s rude to leave in the middle of a conversation,” he follows Ally to Hunter. “Especially when our sparkly companion here asked a question.”
They keep walking.
“Wait so one moment you want to talk and another you just want to leave?” But Hunter had left. Ally dashs after her.
Zyth grabs Ally before she can chase after Hunter. “Just let them leave. Go graffiti somewhere.”
“Fine,” Ally says, and she walks off in a random direction. “Have fun.”
