Chapter 7: There's A Steering Wheel In Your Pants

"Man, that was some powerful shit," Stan laughed as he surveyed the patch of forest around him. He still felt a little trippy, but a few warm-up exercises quickly cleared his head. After plucking what he judged to be a sufficient supply of "magic leaf," Stan was soon on his quest to explore the forest and its wonderful plant life.

Stan was taking a breather when he sensed a female presence. This immediately raised his interest and caused a stirring in his loins, and he followed. Stan grinned.

"Violent-smoking-toking-sexing rampage, here I come!"

Lauren Reddish had an unsettling feeling that she was being watched. She quickly took out the instruction manual to her weapon and, after several minutes, managed to take off its safety and load a magazine.

"Who's there?" She called. No one answered.

Fate was on Lauren's side that day, for she turned right when Stan was about to make his move. Lauren screamed and fired a lucky shot that elicited a sharp cry of pain from Stan, who dropped his hammer and clutched his face.

Stan soon let go of his face, knelt down, and picked up his hammer. There was a look of maniacal rage on his face. Laruen's shot had been off. Instead of blowing Stan's brains out, the bullet tore into his cheek, grotesquely lengthening his mouth by a good two inches. Lauren attempted to back away, but she tripped on a tree root and could only look on in shock as Stan slowly and deliberately advanced on her.

"You biff," Stan growled in anger as he raised his hammer to strike. "You filffy, filffy, biff. Y'ull barery haff eyesh to shee ow of, by ze chime I'm shrough wiff you."

Lauren screamed in fear and ran. Stan was not so willing to let his victim get away so easily and took off in pursuit.

Unfortunately for both Stan and Lauren, their path took them to the edge of a cliff. It was not particularly tall, and someone like Quan or Castagno might be able to jump off of it with no problems. Lauren, however, was surprised by the sudden change in topography. She tried to slow down, only to trip on a rock and experience a short drop and a sudden stop.

"Shon of a biff!" Stan shouted in frustration. He could jump down, but necrophilia was definitely not his thing. Still fuming, he turned his attentions to his wound.

"This is going to hurt," he thought, as he took out Justin's lighter.

Lauren's fall proved a godsend for Justin Wei. He was wandering around the bottom of the cliff when a sickening thud alerted him that there was someone around the vicinity. Justin had been equipped with a chainsaw. He thought that was pretty good until he heard gunshots in the forest that Alice Li had ended Joseph Hicks. Thus he came to the realization that he was going to need some better equipment if he wanted to survive.

He approached Lauren's body with caution and examined it. Lauren had fallen headfirst, and the impact had broken her neck. Her eyes still bulged with fear even in death, and Justin reached forward and closed her eyelids, unable to stomach the sight. He then turned to the weapon she still cradled.

Justin's eyes grew wide.

"An Accuracy International AWP sniper rifle? This will be useful," Justin noted. "How l337." With that, he scanned his map and saw that there was a lighthouse nearby. Thinking it would make the perfect sniping post, Justin was soon on his way.

When Stan finally reached Lauren's body, he was angered even more that her weapon had already been taken by another. Seeing as there was really nothing he could do, he then turned to the problem of his split cheek. His attempt at first aid was successful, but the lower half of his cheek was like a dead weight on his face that annoyed him to no end.

Lauren had no adhesive material in her pack. She did have a head full of long hair, and Stan soon drew inspiration from one of the many fucked-up Japanese movies he had seen. After pulling out a handful of hair from Lauren's scalp and producing a nail from his own pack, Stan set to the quite painful task of stitching himself up.

Now Alice Li's quest for allies ended quite successfully. She had happened upon Helen Fu, who was assigned a riot shield. Alice had approached her quietly, making sure to hide the ammo voucher and the weapons list so that Helen would not suspect that she was intent on winning the game. After some wandering, they managed to hook up with Rendell, who was still carrying a semi-conscious Connie.

Alice Li looked at their weapons. A riot shield, a submachine gun, a semi-automatic pistol, and a boomerang. Not too shabby, save for the last item. Her thoughts then turned to how to obtain these weapons for herself.

Carissa Huq was quite worried that she was still alone this late into the game. Thus, she was relieved to come upon Rushi Dave. She was less than relieved, however, to see that his weapon was a tennis racquet and three tennis balls.

"Hey, look on the bright side; at least it's a ranged weapon, right?" Rushi tried to reassure Carissa, but he was not too confident of their chances of survival either. "At any rate, let's get going. Maybe we'll run into someone with something good, or something."

David Tian was a samurai. At least, he always wanted to be one, so he was pretty excited when he saw that his weapon was a katana. However, he soon learned that others on the island had guns, and his countenance fell. Knowing that he would probably not survive, what option was left to him?

He considered seppuku but ditched the idea almost immediately. "A samurai must be willing to live as though already dead," he thought as he made his decision. David Tian found a clearing next to a wooded area. He would fight the first person he saw, and if he died, he would die with honor.

It was not long before Quan had happened on the vicinity, harpoon gun at the ready.

"Banzai!" came David's battle cry as he rushed forward, katana held high.

"Dude, what the hell?" Quan yelled as he parried a thrust with his harpoon gun before drawing his own sword. He blocked David's follow-up slash, placing both blades in a bind, and attempted to reason with his friend. But David was beyond all reason, and he kicked Quan away before resuming his attack.

Quan's eyes narrowed. "Well, if that's the way you want it, then fine, I'll play," he growled as he met a sideways cut with a block, then knelt down and swung his sword at David's kneecaps. David jumped over the low attack, retaliating with a downward swing. Quan's parry led to a cut and thrust combo that pushed David back. The back-and-forth continued until both fighters' swords were caught in a bind again. Quan and David each pushed, each trying to press his blade into the other's jugular.

Small notches could be seen on Quan's sword. The katana was, after all, an extremely well-crafted weapon. But Quan's blade was exactly designed to do battle with the Japanese katana. The Chinese broadsword, contrary to its depiction in Shaw Brothers kung fu flicks, was a sturdy piece of work, and if one looked closely, one could see that David's blade was rather battered and slightly bent.

Their combat was suddenly interrupted by a piercing scream that brought both David and Quan to their senses.

Deepika Mutyala bolted out of the woods, a frantic look in her eyes. Her shirt was ripped in several places, as was her skirt. Shortly thereafter, Stan came staggering out, yelling in anger.

Stan had fixed his oral wound; he had stitched it together using bits of Lauren's hair. It solved his speaking problem, but he had a more pressing issue at the moment. Earlier, he had tried to force himself on Deepika only to receive a full blast to the face from her designated weapon, a can of mace. His eyes were red and still tearing from the blast, and he was going to get some revenge (and something else, too).

Unfortunately for Stan, two sharp metal objects blocked his way. Quan's broadsword and David's katana were both pointed at his throat, forcing him to stop in his tracks.

"There is no honor in forcing yourself on a woman," David said with great severity. Quan rolled his eyes at the melodramaticness of David's comment.

"Yeah, both of us detest that sort of thing," Quan added. "I may be a violent bastard, but I've got standards. So why don't you make like a tree and get the fuck outta here?"

Stan's thoughts first turned to his burning eyes, then to the two swordsmen in from of him, then to Deepika's figure behind them, and finally to his unsatisfied libido.

"God damn it," he growled before slinking off to slake his thirst elsewhere. "This is driving me nuts!"

29 Students remain.