Some Life This Is - Kate the Chaser X Hoodie

6

Kate regretted not grabbing her mask when she had the chance now, as she damn near flew through the woods she knows so well now after Skully. Skully, however, has the advantage of being faster and having camouflage-- A brown and blue coat is better for hiding than a white hoodie could be any day. She can't use the tactics she uses against 'normal' people here, they both use and know everything about those.

So she stays in the open, knife out and in a defensive stance. She stops, then shoots off to the left after him, half herding him to an overrun pipe between two creeks.

She dives at him and takes a swing with her knife- it catches his coat, but doesn't even really tear that, much less skin. He throws a punch at her arm, right wrist, but she slides to where he only hits her shoulder. It stings, but she doesn't think it'll bruise, if anything. She sweeps his leg, taking him to the ground, but he rolls and gets up before she can properly pin or stab at him.

He grabs her leg, forcefully twisting her ankle all wrong and taking her down. Her knife embeds in the ground, but she's seeing red and doesn't notice. She springs up and slams him into a tree before headbutting him as hard as she can. She feels hot, thick liquid running from her nose, but doesn't care as she moves away to retrieve her knife.

Her mistake.

He tackles her to the ground, starting a real battle of strength as he tries to choke her out. She grabs her knife and stabs him in the thigh, forcing him to loosen his hold on her enough for her to gain the upper hand...Except that it becomes abundantly clear that she won't the moment he pulls her knife out of his own leg and gives her the same treatment, worse even, by stabbing her in the side.
She grunts, vision briefly tunneling, before grabbing a rock and slamming it into the side of his head, dazing him. He flails and whacks her in the neck, enough to bruise and stop her breath for a few seconds. She grunts and grabs the knife, flipping it in her hand and swiping at Skully, cutting his skin.

Then, like some kind of fucking animal, he actually *bites* her arm. He latches down, and it takes three hits to the side of his head to get him to let go. She is bleeding, and may need stitches, but she isn't going to loose the limb.

Not like it would take. It'd hurt like a bitch to regenerate though.
Then, as fast as he bit her, he also stabs her. Right in the chest, with enough force to go through a rib or two. On a burst of adrenaline, knowing she doesn't have much time to finish this fight on her terms, she grunts and flips to be straddling him, beating down on him with everything she has until he's mostly still and her vision goes out.

When she does wake up she's alone, still in the woods, an ache in her chest the only thing reminding her of what happened. She takes in a shaky breath, moving her limbs to get up as much as they protest and shake. It's dusk, the others are probably back home by now. She isn't that far away, is she? Kate would hear them if they were looking.

"They aren't looking." she whispers, dumbfounded by the revelation, before starting to shake. They aren't looking for her, she's been missing for hours without her mask or knife and they aren't looking. She stumbles forwards before faceplanting- right, her legs haven't reset, an aftereffect of being dead for who knows how many hours. She groans and pushes herself back up, deciding that the nearby tunnel would be better than trying to trudge back home. Is it home? A fuzzy buzzing fog fills her mind, so she stops thinking, stops trying to remember.

Kate slinks to the overflow pipe, leaning on the concrete wall, trying to control the violent shaking racking through her body. She unzips her hoodie and rubs her hand over where she was stabbed, feeling the scar get smaller under her hand. She sighs and looks up to and through the trees, eying the new moon above. It seems to get brighter, brighter as she watches it, until-

"What beplagues you so?" a grating voice like a million bees worms it's way into her brain, uncaring for if she resists or not. She whimpers and shuts her eyes, but his visage is seared into her brain. "Fine then. Rot here." it says again, uncaring, placing countless images in her brain of her own body lost to time, thousands in a matter of seconds. She leans over outside the pipe and pukes as her cruel puppet master leaves, likely to torment her group's next target.

"Kate?" She hears called out from the vague direction of the house. She loses her words, though, and even almost thinks it may be a hallucination. "Kate?" She hears closer, male, not Toby, not Skully. She groans and scoots farther back into the pipe, unwilling to let Tim or Hoodie see her like this, covered in her own browned blood. "No, I heard her, you head home I'll be back soon." A modulated voice says, before she hears the crackling of a walkie-talkie. "Kate?" She hears- Hoodie. It has to be Hoodie.
"Go away." She groans, zipping her jacket back up and wiping her eyes with her sleeves. "I'll be back in the morning just...Please go." Kate grumbles, looking out into the woods for his signature orange color.
He shakes his head and offers her mask out to her before pointing to the sky, where clouds are quickly covering the stars and moon overhead.
"Rain, eh?"
He nods, sitting with her as it starts to drizzle. She rolls her eyes and scoots more to her side of the pipe, figuring this is where they are both spending the night tonight.