thearena | It's the Beginning of the End [CLOSED]

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It's the Beginning of the End [CLOSED]

Who| Signless and Justin, later Signless's corpse and the people who wanted to discover it
What| MURDERS, the aftermath of said murders
Where| Fifth floor, in the bioluminescence exhibit
When| Week 4, during the night
Warnings/Notes| Decapitation/dismemberment and everything that goes with

The Signless has wandered away from Kankri and Venus for the moment. He hasn't yet been able to see this exhibit at night when it glows, and he's glad now that he decided to investigate the light. It's strangely comforting -- not really familiar, but quiet and dark and just secluded enough that he doesn't feel like he's in immediate danger.

Of course, this is the arena, and he is 100% wrong.

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He's had some good days and some days that, when he looks back at them, weren't so good. Days when the fear planted in his mind reared up in flashing indigo and roared, blotting out anything but overwhelmed desperation.

Today is a middle day, not so far gone that he can't function, not so far removed from the fear that he can feel anything else. Madness clings and glitters bright in his peripheral vision, like a thousand nameless, faceless stars. He retreats once again, away from the other tributes, and finds somewhere to be alone.

The floor glows in quiet blue-white, a layer of clear floor showing off a tank of living jellyfish underfoot, covered in glowing stripes and dots, and Justin sits on the floor and watches. The walls are full of fireflies, tens of thousands of insects crawling over each other, lights blinking. It's all rather impressive, but not so impressive that Justin doesn't notice a figure moving past the displays, occasionally blocking out the light.

For now, he says nothing, just watches.

It doesn't take Signless long to realize he's not alone. It's easy to see where the light is blocked by someone sitting not too far away, and he can even make out most of the person's features -- the plus side to being a nocturnal creature.

He debates for a moment before sitting down as well, what seems like a respectful distance away. This other person is probably worn out and looking for a moment's peace too. There's no need for anyone to feel threatened.

"I'm not looking to fight, if you're wondering."

Justin's eyes have adjusted to the dim light as much as possible, but not enough to read the troll's lips. He has to focus on the sounds, despite his limited hearing, despite his throbbing headache, and he is not in a good mood. The troll might not be looking for a fight, but Justin is considering it.

"I see."

He has a mask, three in fact, in the bag he's been carrying since the cornucopia.

"How fortunate."

Well. It's not exactly what one would call a warm response, but it's something. It's not a declaration of attack and it's not accompanied by a knife in his gut, so really for a random encounter in the later weeks of the arena it's going kind of well.

"Mm. Though I'd still prefer you keep your distance, if you don't mind."

"Of course." He tries to sound friendly, or at least nonthreatening. He's tired, and he wants nothing more than to rip the troll apart, splatter blood across the walls and floor. There has to be something pleasant he can say, something that makes things go more smoothly.

"You are the Signless, correct? I share a district with the Disciple."

"Oh! Yes. Are you a friend of hers?"

This person might have even seen him once or twice when he came down from Twelve to visit -- probably has, if they recognize him even in the dim light. It occurs to him suddenly that he really doesn't know many of the friends that the Disciple may have made in Panem since arriving, and what a gross oversight that is on his part, especially with how adrift she's told him she's felt.

Friend? No, Justin doesn't have friends.

"We get along well."

Even if most of his interaction with his suitemates is them yelling at him to turn his music down.

"She seems very fond of you."

One hand slips into his bag, feeling for the edges of a mask.

Despite the harmless tone of the conversation, the Signless tenses up when he sees Justin reaching into his bag. He likes to extend the benefit of the doubt where he can but someone reaching for something he can't see is one of the most hard-wired red flags. This is still a deathmatch. Everyone he doesn't know -- and even most everyone that he does -- is dangerous, and there's only so far being kind and making it clear he doesn't want to fight will get him when nobody is obligated to play along.

"We're what humans would call beloveds," he says, borrowing a term from Marius, but he's more focused on Justin's hand. Please let him be going after a stale pastry or something else non-lethal. Everybody has to eat, nobody has to kill.

"She said she is your most faithful follower." Justin does not move yet, just waits patiently for the troll to relax. Then, he will strike. Justin Law knows how to be patient.

Sure enough, he does relax once it looks like Justin isn't planning to do much of anything. Maybe he was just fidgeting. Maybe he wanted to make sure something that was in his bag earlier is still there. Surely if he wanted to strike, he would have by now?

"She is. That's hardly all she is to me, but was a mutual philosophy that brought us together."

"A philosophy she recorded for future generations." Justin runs through the kill a few times in his head first, assesses three different plans of action, and decides on one. "You are very fortunate."

A few more moments of peace, before he splatters the troll's blood over the floor. A few moments of rest.

"I like to think so."

He takes his eyes off Justin to trace the path of a jellyfish beneath the glass floor. Now would be the ideal time to catch him off-guard.

The troll relaxes, and Justin moves. The mask comes up, right hand pressing wood against his face and his sixth sense floods in information, activates and he can feel the thousands of tiny, low-energy souls in the tanks around them, and the bright hot pulse of the Signless.

It's that soul he aims at as he throws his left arm out, blade appearing from the back of his forearm. The guillotine blade detaches, connected to his arm by a sturdy chain, and strikes out. If the troll does not move before the blade hits, it will cut his torso in two.

It's a lucky thing for the Signless that he had sweeps and sweeps to build up quick reflexes in case that noise he just heard was an Alternian zombie or a highblood's arrow or a hungry beast. He manages to scramble sideways and to his feet, though the blade doesn't entirely miss him: it cuts through the fabric of his pajama shirt.

It's a good strategy, really, he thinks as he tries to mentally locate the nearest exit while simultaneously moving in whatever direction Justin is not in. Talk to your victim, put them at ease, strike when you know you can catch them off-balance. Probably makes a good show for the Capitol, too, because they all know what's coming and have to wait through the mounting suspense.

He runs.

The troll runs, and Justin sends his weapon form after. Not the blade this time, but the headlock of the guillotine, attached to the end of a chain growing from Justin's forearm. It swoops low across the floor, controlled by thought rather than physics. If it clamps down around the troll's leg, Justin will take the opportunity to pull him down and slam him into the glass of one of the jellyfish tanks in the walls.

He goes down with a shout and a thunk against the glass, turning on the ground to see what's got ahold of him. This is an ability quite unlike anything he's ever seen before, and in any other circumstance he might be interested in learning what it is and how it works, but the important part right now is that it's making it a lot harder for him to run away. He scrabbles at the headlock but his yellow nails are as nubby as the rest of him and it doesn't do much good.

Even if the Signless weren't unfortunately nubby, it would take a crowbar and excessively sweaty strength to break Justin's current hold.

The death scythe steps closer, close enough to read the troll's lips in case he starts to beg for his life. Not that Justin would let him go free, but begging has some entertainment value.

"Any last words?"

He thinks about that. There's no point in begging for his life, and it would make him appear weak. He doesn't want to become a career, but he also doesn't want to look like a coward. 12 deserves better. He's going to give them better.

So he just says,

"Find me, after the arena. I think I'd like to get to know you better."

Something in Justin's expression shifts, maybe not visible under the mask, a change from a smirk to something like a genuine smile.

"Of course."

Death should be quick, nearly painless. The headlock on the troll's leg pulls away, transforming instantly into a blade that will slam through his throat.

Unlike many insects, trolls can't live in pieces. Red blood splatters against the glass and obscures some of the light from the jellyfish, but other than that, the Signless's body isn't really going to be doing much anymore.

The encounter had been quick, efficient, almost calm. The troll's last words had helped with that.

But the sight of the bright red blood does something to Justin's mind, to the part of him that listened so willingly to the voice of the Messiahs. Blood, and he wants to see more, so the blade comes down again, cutting cleanly through the ribcage, then again, through the gut. Again, again, blood splattering the floors and walls, and without noticing, Justin kneels, lets the blood soak into his clothing, drags his hands through ruined flesh. At some point, he started laughing, blood-damp hands running over his face, through his hair.

See? Look at what he has done. Find him worthy of the notice of the gods. He will paint himself with blood.

Eventually, he finds enough inner stability to rise to his feet and leave.

It's only a few minutes after Justin leaves that Kankri wanders into the hallways of glowing sea creatures. He never did get to visit the ocean, but his cullparent always told him stories and showed him pictures that made him ache to see it and then feel even more bitter for it being "too dangerous" for someone of his delicate disposition. So now that he and Venus have finished up their other business on this floor, he's excited to come look at the wildlife with Signless.

"Signless? It's me, it's Kankri," he calls out softly, so hopefully others won't hear. When no answer comes, he doesn't think much of it - the other troll must be further in. He ambles along, a delighted smile on his face as he gazes up at the jellyfish surrounding him in their walls. It's a rare expression for him. While he can certainly be vulnerable and has been plenty in the Arena, it's rare that he actually lets himself relax and let his guard down enough to just be happy and not worry about things.

Then he steps in some kind of puddle, and a step later his foot bumps into something sort of soccer ball sized. He looks down with a slight frown.

Humans might take a few moments to recognize what it was he'd bumped into, but trolls are nocturnal and so Kankri easily makes out Signless's face staring up at him from his feet. His head's rolled away from some odd lumps that Kankri really doesn't want to realize are the maimed remains of his friend's body. He realizes it anyway.

An anguished, horrified wail echoes through the fifth floor, Kankri not even caring who hears him because Signless is dead and it's grotesque and who would even do something so awful? This can't be happening. It just can't.

Edited 2014-02-20 06:48 (UTC)

Kankri's scream is like a siren to Venus. She gets up immediately from where she's been resting and comes running, ignoring the way her leg feels like it catches fire as she does, ignoring the stumble as she turns a corner and her feet feel numb.

It's only because of the light of one of the jellyfish that Venus sees Signless' blank eyes even before she sees Kankri. For a sickening moment, her heart lurches into her lungs as she mistakes which Vantas is it, until her visions snaps into adjustment enough to make out the wail that's started again. The source of the voice.

Venus finishes the sprint over and grabs Kankri in her arms, pressing his face to her bosom to achieve the twin goals of hiding the scene of carnage and to dampen the shrieking. She holds him tight and close, rocking slightly, eyes wide as she watches to see if the murderer comes for either of them.

"Shh, shh, it's me, I got you, I have you, shh..."

Kankri screams and lashes out when he's grabbed up, feeling trapped, he's got to get away-

And then Venus is murmuring in his ear, comforting him. Shooshing him. Any other time he might protest such a blatant advance, but right now he's too messed up to care. He curls his arms around her and starts to sob into her warm skin.

"They cut him apart, they cut him to pieces, Venus," he gasps against her shoulder. His breath is coming too fast; he's going into hysterics. He's never seen someone dead before.

"We have to get out of here."

This is what she's good at. Pulling people out of wreckage, from burning buildings, holding them until they're camera ready, keeping them safe from paparazzi and distracting the press. Steering those who are too shaken to direct themselves.

She picks Kankri up and, ignoring her limp, ignoring that he's near her size, starts to carry him. She needs to get him away from the scene of the crime, somewhere quiet where he can process something too jagged for his brain to swallow. "I've got you. No one's going to hurt you while I've got you."

Kankri clings, unaware of what she's even doing and not even caring. He just wants to be not here. He wants this not to be his reality.

"Why would someone do that?" he sobs, his voice cracking slightly with his emotional pain. "Isn't it awful enough that we're in this situation at all? How could anyone have, have done that, to his poor body? He'd never hurt anyone!"

He feels overwhelming waves of nausea in addition to the sobs wracking through him. "I think I'm going to be sick," he manages to tell Venus.

Edited 2014-02-23 07:30 (UTC)

It's not the thought of getting puked on that makes Venus stop - it's the idea that it'll leave a trail, that someone will follow the drips of vomit to wherever she hides them. She worries, too, about Kankri's own comfort (if there's any comfort to be had in this situation at all).

Thankfully, there's some big posterboard about electric eels that she can duck behind, and so she does, setting Kankri down on his knees as the fear starts to hit his stomach. She lets him go and yet she doesn't separate from him entirely, holding a hand to his shoulder as she pops her head above the display to watch for anyone coming for the sound.

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It's the Beginning of the End [CLOSED]

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