Coloring Medium Round 1.2

The cord dangling around Nysa's wrist shifted as she played around with it, looking across the table nervously. Circuit was playing dealer, which was the only reason he agreed to playing the game. He shuffled the deck with expert paws, a cocky grin spread across his face. Eggplant watched from the side of the table, its eyes wide and hackles raised; pure excitement radiated out from it.

To the side of the room, the dogs who had previously been playing poker watched with almost as much enthusiasm. All of them seemed to love a good game, and as most of them drank their drinks in a most refined manner, Chief called out, "Aren't you fellows going to ante up?"

If possible, The Circuit's grin grew a little wider. He obviously thought he had this in the bag. "Naw, we're only playing for one thing here, dawgs." With that, he started dealing out the cards. One to Nysa, one to himself, back and forth until both of them had five cards. Completely confident, he whipped out a spray paint can and tossed it on the table. "Your turn."

Hands trembling only a little, the brunette pressed her mouse out to the middle of the table and picked up her cards. A blue Ace of Diamonds, a Three of Hearts, a King of Diamonds… wait.

A blue Ace of Diamonds? What in the world? Nysa's face compressed into frown, but she remembered herself and the game she was playing, pulling her mouth back into a straight line. It was too late though, the wolf had already seen it. "Getting nervous over there, shawty?" She shook her head adamantly in response, though her brow was still furrowed in confusion- why a blue card? No time to wonder, though; there was no folding in a game with only two people, or else she'd lose her manipulator.

"I want three new cards, please," the brunette bit her lip and shifted and looked a nervous wreck. She really was terrible at keeping her poker face on. She removed three useless cards from her hand (a Three of Hearts, Nine of Clubs, and Six of Diamonds) and slid them over to Circuit.

He took them with that cocky smile, easily pushing them to the bottom of the deck and drawing another three cards. Nysa took them and looked them over painstaking while the gangsta wolf did nothing but finger his own hand and knock on the table- a universal symbol for checking. "Lay your cards down!" Eggplant yipped impatiently, jumping up and boinging down. "C'mon, you slowpokes, get on with it!" A wide, toothy smile spread over Nysa's face, her eyes lighting up.

Her cards went down, and she couldn't hold the happy, victorious laughter in anymore. The hand she'd achieved was a Royal Flush of the Diamond persuasion. It was the highest available combination in the game, and by some stroke of insane luck, she'd gotten it.  "Yes!" Nysa jumped up and positively cheered in her keening rough voice, her skirt flying up and her heart racing her chest- she'd won!

Eggplant ran in and jumped at her, pawing at her playfully, shouting nonsensical joys- "Yo, yo, yo, wait up a second. You cheated!" The Circuit snarled as he stood up, four properly colored Aces and a Joker falling from his paw. "That whacked up blue card is so obvious, I could have seen it from a mile away!" He snatched his manipulator off the table. "No deal! In fact, shawty, you owe me something!" Circuit grabbed her mouse in one paw and clicked his spray paint can to black with the other.

"Wait, I didn't chea-!"

There was little to no warning as he sprayed the room black as night and ran for the door; behind him, six dogs and a girl hacked at the fumes the paint emitted. Woozily, Nysa realized he was taking off with her manipulator and if she didn't stop him, she'd lose and maybe never get back home again. That thought in mind, she reached behind her, into her backpack, and grabbed a vial of poisonously green liquid. She squinted one eye, rubbed it hard, faltered, and then flung the glass down the hall, praying to Raeli it would connect. This one throw was everything; if it missed, he would escape. If it didn't, well, acid burns would hopefully slow him down.

CRASH!

Cursing sounded through the room.

"What coarse language!" One of the dogs gasped before breaking off into coughs.

Eggplant vigorously rubbed its face, trying to get rid of the paint, decided it couldn't be bothered to doso and bounded into the hall near-blindly. Behind her, Nysa (after grabbing that interesting blue card) stumbled to keep up, her wheezing and the desire to lay down awhile growing with each passing step. Halfway through the hall, the black paint fumes turned to noxious green gas, which only made the village girl breathe harder and cover her mouth with her sleeve.

The Circuit was a sight to see. The acid, instead of eating through his skin and fur, had dissolved his right side.  Perhaps the scariest thing was his ability to still yell at her. A normal person would probably be dead from this. In retrospect, though, there probably weren't a lot of normal people in the tournament. "I can't lose here! I haven't even gotten to the best part, dawg!" Nysa looked down at him, trying to hold back hacking coughs.

"Are you going to be okay? You're not going to die or anything, right?" She asked in a thin voice, horrified by the prospect that she could have killed someone. Eggplant tilted its head to the side, curious about this new development.

"Naw, just gonna sit here in a puddle of myself with the chick who beat me standing over me, enjoying my missing arm and leg," Circuit spat out in one breath, more affected by the gas then he'd realized. Wincing, the village girl leaned down a little, grabbed the spray paint can and her trusty, essentially unusable mouse, and wrapped her hand around the wolf's remaining arm.

The poodle to her side blinked. "Are you taking him out? I guess that would be nicer than leaving him in here while he doesn't have half his body, but he did accuse you of cheating-" ("She did cheat!" he insisted, but was ignored almost as easily as the poker players before him.) "-and he also tried to hurt you once!" Nysa shrugged and smiled and cringed; stupid fumes were starting to make darkness creep at the edge of her vision.

She lugged The Circuit out of the hall and over the threshold, not giving Eggplant a proper answer. Medium's air hit her like the smell of everything and nothing all at once, and Nysa smiled and slumped down. "Aw, c'mon, don't go to sleep!" The poodle and the wolf said in a sort of awkward unison; Circuit with a note of desperation and the need to be drawn back together, Eggplant with the disappointment of a young child who couldn't play anymore.

"Not going to sleep," Nysa disagreed, her voice a quiet whisper of what it normally was. "Just a little worn out." Nonetheless, she dragged herself to her feet and stared at The Circuit, trying to figure out a way to solve his problem. With a little light bulb, the brunette pulled out her mouse, kneeled to the ground, and started up her right- and left-clicking. Several times, she made puzzled noises and had no idea how to get where she wanted to go, but in the end she opened a drawing program; GIMP. Nysa used the cursor to draw the wolf a few new limbs.

He blinked. "Thanks, shawty." Although Nysa had no idea what 'shawty' meant, the thanks made her beam. She sat back and pulled the blue Ace she'd shoved up her sleeve out to inspect it. To her complete surprise, it had changed into a new card entirely- a Nine of Diamonds.  

"Huh."

Eggplant leaned over her shoulder to look at it. "Wasn't that an Ace earlier?" At Nysa's nod, Eggplant jumped. "Maybe this is your clue or something! Do you know what the different cards mean? Or do different cards even mean anything? Do you think this is the good one or the bad one?"

Grinning, the village girl shrugged and glanced at The Circuit, who was currently testing out his new limbs. "Dunno. Maybe! We got a lot of time to figure things out now, though, don't we?" And Eggplant couldn't argue with that, because she'd won her first match.