Their first unlucky visitor is seen moving through the bushes in the direction of the fresh water spring. Her keen eyes look like they can pick up the tiniest hint of another's presence, though her sluggish movement says otherwise. In the daylight, she relies on her eyes to ease her through a situation such as this, while at night, she uses her inherent animal ability, a much more reliable alternative of self defense. It is more likely that she would fail to sense an imminent danger in the daytime.

Grumbling, she trudges through the underbrush in search of nourishment and water. Upon exiting the forest, she immediately spots a flat area on the side of the mountain bordering the forest. She swishes her tongue around to try and dampen her mouth as she hears the glorious sound of rushing water, tantalizing her from the flat part on the mountain side. Feeling a sense of great relief, she begins climbing the mountain in hopes that the sound of water is, in fact, being produced by real water. At this point, it is possible she is dreaming up mirages. When she reaches the peak, she sighs and takes in her surroundings: the flat is dry and is colored an arid brown. However, it is home to a variety of indistinguishable brown bushes, most of them armed with uninviting thorns and burs. The flat gives off a very unsettling vibe, so strong that it nearly discourages the animal from continuing, but she is too desperate to give up now. Besides, she can see the natural spring mere feet away!

The animal lets her guard down and begins pushing towards the water slowly like a zombie, imagining the taste of water on her lips. She hears it trickling from the natural spout in the side of the rocky ledge.

Then, a click.

Her ears spring up as her eyes widen. She immediately realizes how foolish she was for letting her guard down.

Bang!

Too weak to leap out of the way, she stiffens up pathetically, hoping to counteract the bullet with her steel-like muscles. Instead of hindering the bullet, her muscles are easily penetrated as the metal shell rushes through her tightened abdominals and gets lodged within her. It barely does any internal damage.

There is no dramatic act; she doesn't flail around or clutch the wound. She just falls right down, burying her snout in the dusty ground.

#18: Lucario lays on the ground, motionless except for her tail, which has a few final erratic lashes before it, too, falls to the ground. From behind one of the bushes, her assailant stares at the blue animal, dumbfounded. His purple fingers lose their grip on the gun which falls into the bush and is claimed by the thorns.

"I-I..."

"Good, goood," the white canid coos at his subjugated purple pawn. "You waited a little too long, but I guess you got the job done, right?" He looks down at the body with a bit of contempt. Displeased, he continues: "Though you killed the least fleshiest one of them. The steel-type." The words dribble off his tongue like poison.

Gengar is still in a trance.

"Well!" Absol stomps his forepaws on the ground and begins making his way to the body eagerly. "Let's eat!"

"Woah," Braviary utters from his perch as he watches the dark-types. He furrows his brows and ruffles his feathers angrily. "So," he says disdainfully, "they're playing after all. In it to win it? Complying with the Game Master, then." He stares at the Lucario. Suddenly, he's overcome with the urge to swoop in and fly the body away. He imagines pulling the flesh off the bones with his beak. His beak would sure get the job done. "I'm not a killer if I eat something that's been killed by someone else, am I?" the bird muses. "That gun, though," he says hesitantly, squinting at the gun as it's retrieved from the bushes by the purple one. He gets an idea, although it involves him killing, or at least attacking the dark-types. "Who am I kidding? I want to be a killer. I want to play this game!"

Braviary launches from his perch and soars northwest. He flies until he arrives at the other side of the island, where the northern miniature mountain range is. He lands in the middle of the newly established camp, where he is met by a community of sick and weak animals. Kangaskhan approaches the avian with a dying Pichu and #06: Eevee in her arms.

"I bring news."

Kangaskhan scowls. "Is it good?"

"Don't give me that look," Braviary spits. He looks around at his tribe. The tribe, comprised of the youngest of the whole, has been devastated by famine and dehydration. Kangaskhan, who has enough body mass to last her through a few weeks without food, is taking care of the tribe while Braviary defends it. Unfortunately, both leaders of the tribe share a mutual hatred among each other, all because of Braviary harassing Miltank before.

"The dark-types," Braviary continues solemnly, looking back to Kangaskhan. "They're playing."

Kangaskhan's jaw drops slightly. Everyone suspected this would happen before (obviously. They shunned the dark-types for this very prospect), but regardless, it doesn't seem right. Who would willingly take part in a game of killing, even if the situation depends on it? To Kangaskhan, this feeling of closure is awful.

"They've got a water source," the bird says.

And then, something snaps. Kangaskhan loses her sickened expression. Her eyes slowly lock on to the bird, her face becoming graver and graver as she does so. "Water?" she repeats monotonously.

"Water."

"Water...?"

The braviary nods rapidly, becoming very excited.

In spite of herself, Kangaskhan states firmly, "Do them in."

Braviary nods, knowing that this is something that must be done. "I've got a plan, but I need Sceptile's bag."

Over where Sceptile is resting, the forest animal's eyes spring open.

"Well?" Kangaskhan urges impatiently. "What're you looking at me for? The bag's over by her."

Braviary nods and leaps into the air, shooting across the area towards the grounded sceptile. As he passes, he clutches onto her partially eaten bag with his talons, but as he does so, he feels the cold sensation of tendrils consuming his legs. "Wha―?" He is flung to the ground as the vines continue to gobble up his legs.

"What do you think you're doing?" Says sceptile in a hoarse yet intimidating tone. "Just what are you planning to do?"

"Let go of me! Let freaking go of me!" The bird howls, noticeably panicking as his right wing is being crushed under his weight.

"No, Sceptile! Don't," says Kangaskhan, swiftly making her way to the scene. She grabs Sceptile's shoulders and carefully tries to pull her from Braviary, but the forest animal's vines, which were summoned from the earth, refuse to surrender the bird.

"You're taking my bag to kill someone! I'm not having that." She retaliates, rather dangerously, by grabbing Kangaskhan with her hands and trying to push her away. Kangaskhan reacts compulsively and knocks Sceptile out with a hard punch to the temple.

Sceptile's body falls limply to the ground, though the vines are still wrapped around Braviary's legs. Kangaskhan gasps, realizing what she's done.

"Help," comes the muffled voice of Braviary.

"She ... She looked at me," Kangaskhan stammers, her face growing pale, "...she looked at me with...this hostility that I've never seen before."

Meanwhile, the bird squirms about, ignoring the parent animal. After wiggling frantically, he successfully positions himself on his back and sits up. He raises an eyebrow curiously, straightening out his crumpled wing.

Kangaskhan stares at her paws, shocked. "I had to, don't you see?" she yells.

"You punched her, so what? Help me get these vines off so I can proceed with the plan."

Back at the southern mountain range, Absol is getting ready to eat, while his two "companions" idle near the bushes, staring vacantly at the lucario.

"Do you two not want to eat?" asks Absol.

"Well, I don't really eat..." Gengar replies, thankful that his ghostly body needs no sustenance. He looks sheepishly to Umbreon.

"Uh, uh..." Umbreon nervously approaches Absol and the body. "I guess I could have a little."

Without waiting, Absol raises his paw above his head, preparing to carve Lucario. As he does so, a shimmering glint is reflected off the blade augmenting his paw. Gengar and Umbreon follow the glint as it is projected into the air, having slipped off Absol's paw. Absol looks upwards as the blade curves through the air and disappears off the edge of the flat. "Shit. Shit!" He begins to go after the blade, but soon decides against it after he takes a look over the edge. The cliff is not so steep, so that's not the problem. It's what's at the bottom that is the problem: a sea of indistinguishable brown. This barren area is obviously a good location for these pricker bushes.

Gengar's head buzzes with thoughts. Perhaps this'll keep Absol from cutting up Lucario? he hopes. But wait. My knife. He pulls the army knife from his bag and stares at it. Umbreon looks at Gengar questioningly. "Sorry, buddy." He quickly chucks the knife behind him, down the side of the mountain. He hears its paf paf pafing as it tumbles along the dirt. Paaaaaaf. The knife begins to slide. Soon, it goes flying off the precipice at the bottom of the slope, where it is taken by the ocean.

Umbreon gasps. "Why did you do that?"

"I just can't let Absol cut into Lucario...not after I killed her."

Absol looks away from the sea of pricker bushes and gives his attention to Gengar. "Well," he calls, "looks like we're using your knife then."

"O-okay," Gengar replies anxiously. He gives his bag a cursory look-through. "Oh, I can't seem to, uh, find it."

Absol is there immediately. He bumps the ghost out of the way and peruses through the bag recklessly. After looking through it, he waits a moment, then moves on to Umbreon's bag. After he finds nothing in each, he says, disgruntled, "Well where the hell did it go?"

Umbreon glares at Gengar.

"This is bad."

"Yeah."

"The only means of defense we have now is the gun. Guess'll have to cut the steel-type up with my claws now."

Gengar looks incredulous. "But, your claws―!"

Absol abruptly turns to face the purple ghost. His eyes burn into the ghost like they're monitoring for any signs of dishonesty. "What about my claws?" he asks suspiciously.

Gengar doesn't respond.

Absol huffs and turns towards the body. Once again, he makes his way over to it and prepares to carve it with another dramatic raise of his paw. "Steel-types," he spits again. But, at that moment, he sees something that makes him stop: a slight, almost imperceptible flutter of her eyelid. The motions soon cease, and Absol dismisses them as post-mortem reflexes. Perhaps REM is common while the body undergoes pallor mortis.

"TO HELL WITH YOU, DARK TYPES!"

The three look skyward as the flying visitor approaches, dragging a slew of vines by his underside. There are also a number of dark pellets in his talons. Before the three animals' minds begin to register what's happening, the pellets are dropped.

"Back away!" Absol yells.

Umbreon and Gengar stand for a moment as Absol scurries away. Once the pellets hit the ground, it becomes clear what they are: impact grenades. Umbreon and Gengar are blown backwards. Gengar's body promptly dissolves into thin air. Umbreon, though, is not so fortunate. His body flies ten yards and rolls down the same path as the army knife.

The flat is enshrouded completely. The attacker, Braviary, hovers momentarily, scanning the areas bordering the cloud. "The absol escaped?" Feeling satisfied for the most part, he swoops down and enters the cloud. "That felt good," he says blissfully, replaying the scene in his head. From a bird's eye view, watching the gengar evaporate from the sheer blast and the umbreon soar into the ocean is intense!

Apparently, Braviary is overestimating the impact grenades; while they can do major damage if the target is nearby, they're mainly used to disorient rather than destroy the target. Regardless, Braviary cheerfully continues his search. When the dust settles a bit more and he still cannot find the lucario, he grows concerned.

"Was her body blown up by the grenades?"

"I'm afraid not."

The bird suddenly feels the warm enclasp of arms wrapping around his beak and chest, spraying a hot liquid on his backside. His eyes widen, and he can feel time slow down. Something sharp prods―or stabs―his upper back, giving him great discomfort. The sharp thing penetrates his back further as the arm tightens around his chest. Then, with a clockwise jerk of his beak, his neck breaks.

"Your feathers might make a good bandage," says Lucario emotionlessly. She drops the bird's body, covered in the blood from her bullet wound, and gives the vines attached to his legs a quizzical look before grabbing them and dragging them and the body along. Before she leaves, she strolls to one of the bushes and reaches down, grabbing the gun off the dirt. She dusts it off and continues down the slope, in search of a concealed area nearby. All the while, her assigned weapon, a canteen, bobs up and down at her waist, brimming with fresh water. She stops and looks at Braviary sheepishly. "And, uh, thanks for saving me."

#01: Charizard
#02: Alakazam (blown up)
#03: Gengar
#04: Kangaskhan
#05: Eevee
#06: Pichu
#07: Umbreon
#08: Miltank (devoured)
#09: Sceptile
#10: -
#11: Sableye
#12: Manectric
#13: Armaldo
#14: Absol
#15: -
#16: Drifblim (exited perimeters)
#17: -
#18: Lucario
#19: -
#20: Braviary (neck snapped)

Changes: Several animals have had their # changed. Chapters now have titles. There are now character analysis endnotes. (Thanks DeepCrimson for suggesting a character analysis at the end of each chapter.)

For next chapter, what group/individual would you like me to focus on? (Note: your answers may or may not decide who is killed.)