thearena | If this arena were set in November we could have had a Black Friday Tom Sale

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If this arena were set in November we could have had a Black Friday Tom Sale

Who| Sandy, Tom, Thor, Carlos, Clara
What| Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion to The Mall Arena.
Where| Main floor the ruins of the food court.
When| The final day of the final week
Warnings/Notes| Lots of killing, probably some cursing, child death...really it's everything you watch the Hunger Games for. The viewers at home will be thrilled.

The arenas always seemed so much bigger when the number of tributes had been reduced into the final ten or so.

In Sandy's memory she cannot think of the last time she was so close to victory, and all it had cost her was all her allies once again. She hoped desperately they were back at home cheering her on.

Exhausted from lack of sleep Sandy had finally given up and drank the water despite knowing it to be poisoned. Not much mind you but just enough that she didn't feel like she was going to die of thirst.

Instead she felt like she was going to go insane. The chemicals were reacting wonderfully to her already amped up anxiety. Play that off of her lack of sleep and increasing paranoia and you had a jittery girl armed with a pair of ice skate blades mounted on a broom handle.

She was particularly pleased with this creation that she had cobbled together during one of the nights she'd found herself unable to sleep for more then a couple hours at a time. While she hadn't used it to kill anyone the length of it gave her some confidence she would be able to hurt them long before they could hurt her.

And so rattled, hallucinating and armed Sandy returned to the food court in vein hopes that perhaps there would be some secret stash of bottled water she had missed. She doubted it very much but she had a master key and wasn't afraid to unlock every shop in the food court to look for anything to drink that had enough fluid in it to keep her moving.

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Tom knows the Arena's ending. The animatronics gave a countdown that was none too subtle, and, he figures, also served as a warning - if the Tributes don't end this soon, the Gamemakers will.

By his count, there are at least four other people left alive, and one of them is this ragged child he can't bring himself to actually approach right now. Even with Aang's metaphorical blood on his hands, even knowing death isn't 'for keeps' here, hunting down a child strikes him as a bit distasteful. He's not looking to protect the brat, but he's hoping that one of the other three people running around might do the dirty work for him.

As such, he's following her from a slight distance, waiting to see what monster, in human guise or not, decides to emerge from the shadows to spill her blood. He's been disappointed thus far. The Arenas haven't been geared towards defending the spineless and pacifistic, but maybe that's all that's left. Maybe the other bloodletters killed each other off.

Pity.

Tom takes a seat at the food court and rests his shotgun against his leg, frowning a bit as he takes stock of the contents of the buffet. As usual, there's nothing up to his taste. He may be getting too old for greasy mall food, or maybe he just never had the stomach for it to start. There are reasons besides victory and avoiding a painful death to look forward to a Capitol that is, by all of Molotov's accounts, full of delicious foods and plush beds, the rightful rewards for a successful, murderous entertainer.

Sandy's only ten feet away, and he's acting as if he can't be bothered to even address her.

Sandy hears the footsteps echoing on the tile.

Are they hers? Is she just scaring herself again? The noise in her head is starting to rise once more and it's making her heart skip and thump in her narrow chest.

Gripping her weapon a little tighter the sound of footsteps shifts and she's positive they aren't hers anymore. Too heavy, moving to her side.

She turns slowly, almost afraid of what she might see. She's killed before but each time scares her worse then the time before it.

Her eyes settle on the figure seated at a table as if he was waiting for a waiter to bring him a menu. But to the paranoid and poisoned Sandy the vision blurs. It's not a man anymore but a slender woman with black hair and cold cruel eyes.

Her lips parted in a sinister smile.

Sandy's eyes go wide and the blood drains from her face. Her pupils are pinpricks and for a solid minute she forgets to breath. This has to be a nightmare! This has to be some kind of horrible trick by the Capitol! She can't really be here can she?

Her fingers curl around the broom handle of her weapon till the knuckles turn white. She's not aware she's biting her lip till she tastes blood.

This woman...this monster took away Effie from her.

There would be no time for questions. No time for proof of reality or hallucination. If this was real then Sandy was already dead and the Capitol was just playing with her one last time.

With a scream she charged the vision of Penny with the blades on her broomstick aiming for her gut.

If this was real she was already dead, but she would take this monster with her.

She would murder Penny a second time and hopefully it would be the last time.

If it weren't for the scream, Sandy very well could have done some damage. Her transition from a stumbling, damaged waif to a desperate alleycat comes with lightning speed, and Tom only just has the chance to move with surprising nimbleness behind the table. The crude weapon goes through where he was a moment ago.

His determination to let some other heartless sucker do the job on Sandy evaporates, now that she's tried to kill him, now that she's less a child than a shrieking animal. He keeps the table between them, backing up far enough that she'd have to go well over balance to hit him with her rigged broomstick.

A better man than him might feel guilt at aiming a gun straight at the forehead of a sick child.

"Drop the weapon or I'm putting this between your eyes, lass." He pumps the shotgun to let her know he's serious.

The crunch of chair being speared by her makeshift weapon is barely a click in her ears. She doesn't hear his warning or see his weapon.

All she sees is Penny the torturer. Penny the woman who took away Effie and did horrible unimaginable things to her.

Penny who ruined one of the nicest people Sandy had in her life and made her leave.

The screaming in her ears now wasn't her own but it was the scream Penny had let out the night she had surprised her in her own home. Penny would have never imagined such a small child could be her downfall.

But if Sandy had learned one thing from her friends, it was that little things could cause big trouble.

She twisted her arms hard and the chair flew from the tip of her skate blades at Tom's head. With another shout she barreled into the table with all her might trying to slam it into him and knock him over. All she had to do was get Penny on the ground and she could end this!

In the end, there is no deliberation before the heinous act that comes next. There no part where Tom reckons for his soul, where he considers the moral quandary of killing a little girl with full intent. There's no agonizing, no hesitation. When he recalls it later, he won't even be sure it was something he meant to do so much as his finger on the trigger, disregarding the age-old theory of gun safety where you never point it at anything you'd regret breaking.

A very long time ago, he believed himself beyond the capacity of committing an act like this, but he's done a lot of soul-searching in the last few years and come up empty time and again. He reaches into the depths for goodness and his palms fill with ash.

The gun goes off and knocks some of his wind out with the recoil, and Sandy's head goes in so many pieces across the floor and the table behind her. The force of it's thrown her body back.

It had been a reckless and stupid decision to consume so much alcohol, but Thor can't regret it too much. His head is still pounding and his lips and mouth are dry, but he's more determined than ever to see this through. He's considered who he knows to be left and who among them deserves to win and escape and unfortunately for Tom, Thor considers him to be the least worthy of such an opportunity. It had been largely based upon the fact that he's new, given that Thor doesn't know the crimes Tom had committed against himself and almost every other person in the Arena.

He just happens to be in the right place at the right time as far as condemnation goes. The gun shot alerts him of a fight and he takes care to be at least a little subtle in his approach. He'd done well, until he'd caught sight of the blood and body of a girl who had faced more Arenas than Thor himself. It feels like months worth of white hot rage are making his blood boil. All of the injustice and suffering he's been forced to watch are coming back to him and he can't stand idly by for another second. He doesn't know Tom, he doesn't know why he killed Sandy or for what reasons he remains alive, but he's become the target of a terrible rage.

"NO." Thor roars from behind Tom, his brows are furrowed in stone-faced rage and his voice is every bit as loud as the thunder he summons. He's no talent with a gun, which is why it's unfortunate that he should bring attention to himself. When he fires it, it's clumsy, but it may well clip Tom if luck is on Thor's side.

Tom's ears are ringing from the blast, and as such he only just catches Thor's tell, doesn't turn in time to see the gun coming up. He moves quickly, but the bullet still takes off most of his left ear, and he falls back behind one of the chairs with a hand clapped to a bloody head of black hair. And then he gets a look at his assailant.

"Shit."

He scrambles. It's undignified, rattish, but he's fast, and he pumps the shotgun and fires blindly in Thor's direction to try and buy himself time. He uses the last shells he has

His shoes squeak and slide on the ugly mall tile. He drops hard to his side and he dives in behind the buffet, abandoning the shotgun momentarily to grip the underside of the cart until the metal of it slices into his fingers. And he lifts the wheeled thing, shoving with his shoulder.

Hot oil from four fryers floods the floor of this corner of the food court, mingling with Sandy's blood, permanently staining the clothes she died in, scalding skin that can no longer feel it.

Tom needs twenty seconds and a hundred yards to get back to his other weapons, the carbine and the knife, he left on one of the tables when it was only him and Sandy here.

There's only a small victory in clipping Tom like that, just a little niggle of pleasure to know that hurt before the annoyance kicks in. There's no raised brow or change of expression when Tom turns, just the same rigid expression for the brief exchange of glances.

The blind fire isn't true to aim aside from the graze of a bullet on one shoulder and another buries into his arm with all the biting burn and pain it can provide. Thor grits his teeth, forcing himself to endure the pain in other to hold his gun steady to fire at Tom while he attempts to escape. His focus on holding the gun upward makes it harder to see what Tom intends to do with those fryers, he's already stalking toward him like a lion after well deserved prey.

His approach makes it all the worse when the oil floods toward him, hot enough that leather boots and jeans might as well be tissue and paper for all they do to protect him. The oil laps at his skin and penetrates his clothes, burning everything it touches with intensity. For the first few seconds, Thor barely feels it, the pain doesn't quite set in as he forces himself to move, flesh pulling against the confines of clothing in his efforts. The burn of flesh becomes impossible to ignore and the reality of it sinks in, drawing a howl of pain and anger from his throat.

The floor is near impossible to move on and with no brace Thor stumbles more than once, nearly losing hold of his gun and falling into the pools of heat. He struggles to stay afoot and pushes himself forward, using all the adrenaline he's gained from the injury to continue his pursuit. He moves faster, knowing every step on blistered and burnt feet is one he must take carefully. He's closing in on Tom and he shoots again with arms he struggles to keep steady, aiming for legs and feet to slow him down as well.

"Do not think you can run from this." He growls, voice loud as he abandons any care for subtlety. "I will not see you reign victorious, coward. It will not be you who leaves alive."

Tom, shielded from the splash of oil by the metal cart, pops up from behind it like a gopher as Thor approaches and outright flings the shotgun at him before making a run for the carbine, the knives, the wood axe, the myriad weapons from the sporting goods store.

One of Thor's bullets tears right through his thigh, and Tom goes down, rolling and sliding, knowing he was blessed that it didn't go straight into his knee and cripple him. Tom gives out a sharp cry of pain and drags himself back up, hobbling too slow, much too slow to avoid Thor. Thor is a juggernaut, unstoppable, set in motion by a sense of justice that Tom's always been on the wrong side of and always been staying one step ahead of.

And those who spend so much time on the run from the law have long learned that pride has no place in survival. Pride is a luxury, a bounty from a successful ploy as easily lost as money. And that's why he begs now.

"Mercy, mercy, lad, I fired on accident, I only pointed it at her in self-defense!"

Now more than ever, Thor feels unstoppable. The pain is present, but his mind is focusing on Tom and only Tom. He can cry and scream when he ends this, when someone else can snap his neck and take victory. He cannot yield now knowing there is someone who could so easily prevent the escape of someone good and well-intentioned like Carlos.

He grimaces when the bullet tears into Tom, not taking too much satisfaction when he could easily delight in it. When he's this close, he cares little for the gun and tosses it to the side so he may reach for Tom and drag him closer with relative ease. He props him around so he can face him, staring hard at him as he makes his claim.

A brow twitches and Thor swallows down the urge to throttle him. His voice is lower now, it lacks loud rage and replaces it with something colder. "Then you will point no more." He assures, giving Tom a rough shove backward and letting his fist fly hard into his face before he can fall. The sounds brings him great satisfaction, but he does not smile.

Tom has been punched many times before. It's something of a miracle that his face has remained as handsome as it has, given the amount of times it's taken the brunt of fists, feet, bullets, clubs and fireballs in his lengthy and illustrious career as a professional villain. He's never been punched by a demi-god.

Really, he should savor this moment. Instead, his world explodes into pain and bright lights, blood rushing from his nose and a vessel popping in his eye. He falls back, scrabbling and scooting backwards in some subconscious instinct to put as much distance between him and Thor as possible. His broken nose paints his mustache and goatee red and drips from his mouth, giving him the unappealing visage of a vampire.

The unconscious instinct, the lizard part of the brain that avoids danger as a dust mote evades a hand wafting by, gives way to something altogether more dangerous when Tom realizes how close he's gotten to his weaponry. Strategy comes into play, selecting the best weapon after rifling through his mental roster of what's there.

He has bear mace.

He grabs the can from the sporting goods store backpack, in such a rush that the tacky cammo-covered baggage falls to the floor and belches up fishing wire and rope and Molotov's underwear and everything else he stowed away through the Arena. He pulls himself up on the table and, leaning against it to spare his wounded leg, faces his foe.

He holds it up towards the advancing god and he sprays.

Perhaps for Tom it's something special, but for Thor it just feels right. It doesn't account for every moment of trauma he's had to witness for someone who deserved better and it isn't enough to make up for the temper he's done well to keep swallowed down, but it is sufficient. It is the last bridge to the end of this damned arena and he will burn himself if it means making sure Tom doesn't cross it.

Whatever Tom grabs doesn't ping Thor as something he should be worried about, he's just thinking about the best places to hit before he can do anything with it. Alas, like the taser Darcy pulled on him, it is a seemingly inconsequential but highly efficient weapon that even someone his size can't rightly avoid.

His fist is swung backward when Tom approaches, leaving his face open for the spray. There's a moment of confusion apparent in his face and a crinkle of his nose before the searing, blinding pain begins to flare in his eyes and mouth. Just like the oil, it burns. His sight is taken quickly as everything blurs into darkness and he growls in pained frustration, letting that fist fly regardless of whether he knows Tom is in front of him. He needs water or something to wet his face to stop him clawing at it in pain, but even blindness and swollen glands won't stop him thrashing in the hopes that it does him some good.

Edited 2014-10-02 06:07 (UTC)

There isn't enough distance between him and Thor for him to avoid the backwash of the bear mace. It makes his eyes sting, nearly blinds him, and slows him enough that Thor's next punch hits him again in the side of the head, though it's more a glancing blow. Tom crashes into the table, which is, for better or worse, bolted to the floor. He spits blood that tints his teeth yellow. The can of mace goes rolling away.

But the worst, Tom feels, is over as he crawls under and past the table, to the safety of Thor's blind spot. Thor sightless is much easier to manage. Despite the adrenalin choking his chest, Tom manages to take a deep breath in relief (which he regrets, because the residual bear mace in the air rips up the inside of his lungs and makes him cough). But now he can take his time.

Now he can look over the weapons at his disposal and choose the best one. He could use the carbine, could put a healthy distance between himself and the Christ-damned raging god, but now the pain in his head and his missing ear and the blood drenching his nice shirt has made him vindictive. He wants something personal, something intimate.

Molotov left him a selection of knives. There's something fitting, Tom thinks, about using kitchenware to take someone down in the food court. He chooses the one for carving pigs and rises, coming up behind Thor and driving it into his back.

It's a miracle when the hit lands, and Thor does his best to try follow the sound of Tom's scrabbles and the direction of his hit to seek him out again. He won't yield for lack of vision, he can only throw himself harder and hope to hit something. His legs and feet are screaming in protest by now, the bullet is making his arm numb and his eyes are useless now that they're blurred and watering. Breathing is a struggle and every exhale inward brings a harsher burn.

Aimless destruction looks to be his intention with the way he fumbles and throws at whatever he can put his hands on in an effort to find Tom again. There's a sense of hopelessness to it that he refuses to acknowledge, he's too stubborn to admit that he's running out of chances. His breathing is haggard and harsh and his movements are more and more clumsy, he feels like he's hearing Tom from all angles and he can't turn in every one. It isn't difficult for Tom to happen upon him with his back exposed, giving him plenty of time to drive that knife into Thor's back.

The shock takes the pain for the moment, but he feels every inch of the blade shredding through him and he's roaring before the pain even hits him. To say it was blinding would be ironic, because he can't see a damn thing for the blurs in his eyes. He knows that whatever the knife has met has been fatal, that he will not survive for the amount of blood it will draw and he wants to fight in spite of that. But his legs won't allow it and they finally give out from under him, bringing him to his knees with a thud as he struggles to dampen a coughing fit. A punctured lung guarantees blood in his mouth in an instant and he very nearly chokes for all the pain his throat is in.

"Another accident, I suppose?" He hisses that out, casting a bitter look to the side as he fights trembles of pain. Mortal forms are not built for such reckless fighting. He's so very breakable, or so very broken, as it were. More than anything he feels ashamed, knowing thousands will see Thor on his knees and close to death like a fool.

The initial sounds of their struggle was what alerted Clara and Carlos to the situation at hand. Between the gunshots and Thor's yells, they couldn't help but come running, even if it was sure to get them killed (or maybe because it was sure to get them killed).

The scene that lays before Clara is horrific and confusing all at once. There's Sandy's body and Thor bleeding and...that's not as much of a shock to her as it should be. But then there are other things. Cooling oil on the ground, Tom's ear, an axe, and Sandy's bizarre ice-skate-broomstick-spear. Clara almost considers turning tail and running, purely out of instinct. She isn't built like Alex, she doesn't know how to just dive feet first into clusterfucks like this with very little hesitation.

Except for the fact that Tom, who honestly didn't seem that bad back in District 10 from the few times she saw him around, killed a child. Not a child she knows well, but still, someone who would have probably been fairly defenseless against him. She draws her saber out of the impromptu sheath she pulled together for it so she could carry it on her belt and holds it at her side, just like Dave showed her.

"What did you do?" It's, admittedly, a fairly stupid question for her to ask because the answer is obvious. Earlier she had been mostly okay with the idea of Tom winning if Thor or Carlos didn't. It'd look good for the district and all that jazz. But now? No, he's not going to win if she has any say in it.

"Thor!"

Carlos sees the rest of the scene, of course -- the oil, the overturned table, the weapons, the blood, but none of the details matter, not really. It's enough to know that there has been a fight, and that Thor has been hurt, and that the man with the mustache has done it.

But Carlos doesn't care about Tom. Going into the Arena intending to die changed your priorities, and getting to Thor was worth the risk of being killed by a maniac with a knife. Carlos runs to him, narrowly avoiding slipping on the still-warm oil, and drops to his own knees. He grabs Thor's shoulders and gets a look at his face -- god, what had happened? What had Carlos been too late to prevent?

"Thor," he gasps, realizing the extent of the injuries with rising horror. It isn't the injuries themselves that horrify Carlos -- he has seen much worse. Carlos has seen many people die, and painfully. He holds no illusions that Thor will survive this. "I'm so sorry -- I should have gotten here sooner."

"No, that was entirely intentional," he says to Thor, placing his foot on the god's back, so weakened now by the injuries, like Hercules in his poisoned robe. He considers finishing the job quickly, but then he hears footsteps.

If Tom had his way, he would have a moment to rest, to patch up his injuries before the last two competitors rushed in. His misfortune becomes all the more obvious when he sees that not only are Clara and Carlos together, but they're also, apparently, Thor's allies. He's somehow ended up in the ugly position of fighting a team, and the inherent injustice makes his fist clench tighter over the knife.

He runs. It isn't fast, more a stumble than anything else, hobbled by one old injury and one fresh one. Both legs are weak and watery with pain. He grabs the axe from the table as he passes it, knowing it's the only thing with the sabre's reach.

Thor's mind is clouding fast as burning pain takes a sudden and cold descent into near death. The foot on his back earns Tom a growl and he can't find himself caring how beastly it sounds right now. He should have shot him down instead of pursuing him, but he can only stand to regret so much in his final moments. At the very least he's injured Tom enough that the others have a better chance of defeating him, he only hopes they tread with the caution he neglected.

He doesn't see Clara approach, but he hears her voice and doesn't look upward. This isn't any kind of state he wants to be seen in and it only becomes worse when Carlos approaches the scene. Perhaps together they will have a better chance, and it seems Thor isn't the only one who feels that way. He almost wants to laugh bitterly when Tom turns to run and he coughs before speaking in a hoarse voice.

"He is injured- you must stop him." That goes out to both of them, but he worries most when Carlos insists in taking his shoulders. He tries to look at him, but he's just a blurry mess of perfect hair and concern. "Win, Carlos. I couldn't... He killed a child." His voice is desperate as he tries to get the message out before things really start to fade. "He doesn't deserve it- one of you- better than him." He lets out a shudder breath, very aware of how much blood he's losing.

It's an automatic instinct to chase after Tom, and she's sure that Carlos is on her heels. This isn't about revenge. Alright, it mostly isn't about revenge. Sandy is a complete stranger and she only met Thor through helping him drink through his impossibly huge stash of gin. People generally don't take revenge for people they barely know.

No, this is about deserving to be out of the Arena. She had previously been sure that, at some point, it would just be down to her, Thor, and Carlos, and then the two of them could sort out which of them would win and either mercy kill her or something like that. Hell, she'd considered bringing up the possibility of her and Carlos killing themselves when Thor wasn't looking to give him the crown. Because, at the end of the day, Thor and Carlos deserve to be out of the Arena. Hell, Clara thinks she deserves it too, but not right now. Not when getting out means being stuck with an eyepatch for the rest of her life. Not when Alex and Dave and Rose and Dennett and Clem would still have to fight for their lives. She can win later, once they're out (or never win at all and just be done with it when the Capitol's overthrown. Either or). But now Thor's dying and...she still isn't going to win, she'll let Carlos be the one to get out of her alive. Just as long as it isn't Tom.

When she was younger, her mom used to remind her not to run with knives or scissors (which, duh. She didn't do that anyway and didn't even need the reminder, thanks) or else she'd lose an eye. A darkly humorous thought crosses her mind about what her mother would say about her currently one-eyed daughter chasing after a murderer with a sharp sword.

She's just about on him when she jabs toward his side in a desperate attempt to do some damage to him. There isn't really any honor in killing someone from behind. She knows that. She also doesn't exactly care.

I can't win, Carlos thinks, with despair. He cannot tell Thor that -- Carlos wouldn't tell a dying man that his dying wish would be disregarded, and he couldn't say on camera why he intended to lose every arena he was in --

What can he tell Thor? What words does Carlos have for a dying friend?

He looks at Thor helplessly.

"Thor, I -- I promise, it'll all be over soon. It will." Carlos takes a deep, shaky breath. "I'll see you back in the Capitol. Okay? We'll get a drink, I'll show you what I'm working on, it'll be great." His voice is weak and he knows it, but Carlos presses on. "I'll be fine. A scientist is always fine, remember?"

Thor can't begrudge him that, and he wouldn't even if it were a dying wish that Carlos pointedly ignored. He doesn't want to win either, he could never be the one to stand aside while his friends fight. No more than he already has been, at least. As it is, he barely notices that what he's saying is being dismissed. His vision is already blurry, but it's blotting out fast. Carlos's voice is muffled to him, but he hears him offer to drink and he can't help but smile and laugh almost rakishly given the situation.

"So we will." He retorts in a voice uncharacteristically soft and low for someone like him. He heaves a sigh when he feels himself plunge deeper into the cool grip of death, feeling less connected with the situation than he had been before. He can barely hear what Carlos says next, but the word science comes to mind and he lets his eyes fall shut.

"As you wish, Jane." He mumbles, and that will be the last Carlos hears from him until they meet again.

He isn't fast enough to get away from her, not injured as he is with bloody footprints marking his wake. She doesn't get him from behind because he's well aware to keep looking over his shoulder, to watch the woman coming for him like a falcon diving for prey.

Tom swings the axe at Clara, and the heavy metal slams into the sword and knocks them both askew.

Tom decided long ago that he would cease fighting the universe's urge to cast him as the bad guy, that he would embrace it, that he would wholeheartedly build himself of darkness and deceit if that's what it took to bring him happiness. There's a thrill to villainy, an adrenalin rush to the drama, to the knowledge that he lives outside the rules of typical morality and can preach only of his own selfish whims. There's something deeply satisfying in knowing what he is.

"Really, lass. A sword? I hope you know you're a little late to be Thor's gallant knight."

He swings the axe again, this time trying to disarm Clara by hitting her forearm or wrist.

Despite the way the axe slams into the sword, her death grip on the hilt keeps it from falling to the ground. Which is a small mercy. She knows this fight is probably futile. She has a saber, he has an axe. She's only known how to sword fight for a few weeks, he's a far more seasoned fighter, even if an axe isn't his usual weapon.

"You're fighting with an axe. At least my weapon's a little more modern." Maybe it isn't the smartest thing to try to talk back in the middle of a fight to the death. This isn't a comic book (no matter how much her life has felt like one in the past year) and it would probably be best for her to just stay silent. It would probably also be best for her to just let him kill her and be done with it so she can have her eye back. Clearly, she's not paying attention to things like what would be best for her right now.

The axe misses. It's close, Clara can feel the slight breeze it makes as it cuts through where her arm was just a moment before. She may be dying today, but she has every intention of keeping her body intact before she dies by her own hand after he's taken care of.

He's injured but he's still strong, combat-seasoned from years of life on the lam and skirmishes with supers. When he swings the axe it's with force that would be lethal if it hit. The last time he fought with one it was against his hated cousin, his archnemesis, and yet he's no less brutal against this woman he's never met before than he was fighting Sean.

"Modernity, dear," he says, their weapons clashing and sending waves from the impact up both their arms, "is overrated when compared to something classic."

He's fighting for his life, and yet there's a gleam in his eye, a nearly manic rictus to his wild smile. It's only in the midst of the deepest serenity or the maddest chaos that Tom feels well and truly alive; it's only in his garden, surrounded by his flowers and his ivy-crusted walls, or when there's blood on the floor and sweat in his hair and a weapon in his hands.

He lunges for Clara and the axe comes down again, with the 'chock' sound of a hatchet hewing wood as it hits the floor edge-first.

Clara doesn't respond. She's trying to figure out how to bring him down. She's trying to keep her brain and eye locked on Tom so that she doesn't have another close call. She wants him dead so she can be sure that Carlos can get out of here alive.

The fact that the scientist isn't giving her back up is when she breaks her focus for just a moment to try to figure out where he is. It's only when she looks behind her and sees that he's still on the other side of the oil spill with Thor's corpse. Which is when everything goes wrong.

The axe blade slices through her right wrist, slicing through skin and shattering bone like it was one of her kitchen knives cutting through a cucumber. It hurts more than anything she can think of in that moment. More than it hurt when Venus burst her eye. More than when she broke her arm in first grade. More than how she felt as the anesthesia wore off after her c-section.

The piercing scream that rips out of her sounds barely human and echoes through the empty mall as stares at her bloody, truncated arm and sees her right hand on the floor, still clutching her sword.

This is it. This is how she's probably going to die. That isn't what goes through her mind as she sinks to the ground. No, instead her mind is blank as it's overwhelmed by pain and any of its attempts to process that her hand is suddenly gone.

It's only been seconds since Thor breathed his last -- seconds of Carlos staring helplessly at the body that was already starting to cool under his hands. Thor's passing leaves him struck dumb: it has been nearly a year, he realizes, since someone he's known more than simply in passing has died painfully and traumatically in front of him.

His vision blurs. Carlos knows it's stupid, knows Thor will be in the Capitol within days the same as ever, but that doesn't stop his throat from going tight. As he reaches a hand up to touch Thor's face, Carlos realizes with a sinking feeling that Thor has become someone he truly cares about. What a time to realize it.

--but Clara's scream catches his attention. He whirls around, leaving Thor's body to drop to the floor, and the sight freezes him in place.

That's right. Thor's killer is still here. And he's about to kill Clara.

Carlos jumps to his feet, unsure of what it is he's going to do but trying desperately to come up with a plan on the fly. He doesn't want Tom to win, not after what had been done to Thor, but he also doesn't want Clara to win, because then getting her to District 13 would be harder. Winning himself is not an option. He is angry, grieving, but not frightened, and though reason tells him to stay where he is and instinct tells him to go to Clara's defense --

-- and a roomba makes the decision Carlos can't. Darwin, robotic Darwin who had been with him since week two, who has guarded him while he slept and who he has fought off other roombas for, is skittering across the floor toward Clara when it hits the patch of cooking oil. With a skreeeee, it slides out of control across the floor, wheels greased, right at Tom.

"Darwin, no!"

Clara goes from a threat to a simpering, pained heap in short time, Tom thinks, and he sneers at her as he kicks her down to the ground. He could finish the job right now, hoist the axe again and bring it down on her. He could break her pretty blonde head or clean it right off her neck with one swoop.

But he doesn't. He can take his time now, time to straighten up. His chest is heaving from exertion. His legs are shaking, weak and exhausted. He wipes his mouth across the back of his hand, smearing blood across his cheek, sniffling a bit through a broken nose.

Ragged but triumphant.

The roombas slides, making a squealing sound as it spins out. Tom stops it with his foot, putting weight down just a little so the robotic beast tips up, wheels windmilling in dead air. He looks at Carlos with a sly grin, then mocks an innocent expression, one that looks almost like that of a kitten playing with yarn.

"Is this yours?" He doesn't even stop to look at Clara behind him, as mauled as she is. She's no danger to him anymore.

"Funny, so many weeks in this Arena and all you've managed is to make a little mechanical pet for yourself. You didn't even program it to hunt me down, did you? By the third week in the Arena I made the bombs that demolished the food court, aye, and I didn't need to even use my technical expertise to get that idiotic automaton tin man to do my bidding. And he was enjoyable enough, of course, ripping apart that dumb American broad for me, but he outlived his usefulness in time."

Slowly, indulgently, he kicks the roomba onto its back.

"Shame that I couldn't have secured my survival over more worthy competitors. Here I was worried that the end of the Arena would be something of a challenge, but it seems that only the hiding cowards and your witless grunt of a god survived this long. No matter. A victory's a victory. And I fully intend to enjoy this one."

He raises the axe high, and then brings it crashing down onto Darwin's insides.

Edited 2014-10-03 06:01 (UTC)

Carlos, as a rule, is extraordinarily difficult to rile up. He is a scientist. As a scientist, he does his best to see things from different points of view, and understands that in the long run, few things actually matter.

But looking at Tom, and looking at Clara, and knowing Thor's corpse is just behind him -- hearing that this man was responsible for the bombing a month ago, hearing about whoever he had manipulated to kill someone he was referring to in a kind of uncomfortably sexist way -- and most of all, looking at the wires and chips and bits of metal that spilled with a clatter all over the floor...

Carlos feels rage bubble up inside of him, more anger than he thought he would ever feel again. He stalks forward, step by heavy step, lab coat billowing behind him, reaching over his shoulder to where, unused, the paintball gun he'd modified rested. His eyes are narrow behind his hideous glasses and his mouth is pressed thin.

"Yes," he says, and his voice is as dark and fierce as a nasally dweeb-voice can be. The anger in it almost, almost, makes it serious. "He was mine."

He pulls the paintball gun free, aims, and pulls the trigger.

Had it been a real gun, Carlos would not have been able to do it, not even now. There is a real gun strapped to his belt, hidden below the lab coat, but Carlos wouldn't have reached for it. Instead, he fires at Tom with the non-lethal weapon: the paintballs Carlos took painstaking hours several weeks ago to fill with bleach. His aim is good: compensating for air resistance, for gravity, for inertia -- it's all science, isn't it? Carlos sends three shots of science right at Tom Cassidy's face, and isn't even sorry.

Edited 2014-10-03 06:22 (UTC)

"Eh?"

Tom's so busy gleefully hacking up the roomba that he doesn't notice the sudden change that's come over Carlos, that's turned what appears to be a milquetoast nobody into someone at least semi-serious. He looks up in time for the first paintball to hit him in the eye (the latter two come in quick succession).

He cries out in pain and stumbles back, nearly dropping the axe. His face burns, his eyes feel as if they're being incinerated inside their sockets. He swings his weapon blindly, trying to hit Carlos by virtue of covering a large swath of space with the axehead.

"You'll regret that when you see what Black Tom Cassidy is capable of!"

The moment Tom finishes gleefully listing off his various acts through out the Arena, something comes over Clara. She feels something unlike anything she's ever felt before. Hate, red-hot rage, a need to get her revenge on the man who's currently destroying a perfectly innocent roomba. This suddenly stops being about stopping him because of what he's done today. About getting vengeance for Thor and Darwin and her hand. This is for Clem. This is for Alex.

If someone were to ask Clara how she gathered herself up enough to peel back the fingers of her right hand to get her sword, she wouldn't be able to give them an answer. She just does.

She wants to tell him how wrong he is about Alex. That her husband isn't some toy robot that he can play with. That, even neurosuppressed and acting like a complete dick, Alex is still an infinitely better person than Tom is.

But she doesn't. Instead, she stabs him through the neck from behind with a low, quiet, "No, we won't."

In the end, Tom doesn't even know who dealt the blow, isn't entirely sure how he's dying. One moment he's flailing with the axe, and the next he's on his knees, choking on something hot and wet that's spilling down his chest, something he can't see. The strength goes out of him, all the vindictive fire extinguished so quickly.

There are no last words, no bitter curse upon his tongue. He tries to draw in a rattling breath but it can't seem to get past the blood-slicked metal in his throat.

This is not his first time on the brink of death - with the Capitol's promise, it likely won't be his last. And yet every time the fear is as real as the first, and every time he realizes how alone he is, how neither his child nor his partner are at his side this time or so many times before. Dying alone is one of the fears that a villain must reckon with and accept, but it's never pleasant.

He collapses onto the floor, sword sticking up like a flagpole on claimed land. He doesn't get up.

Carlos lowers the gun slowly, breathing hard. His brain has no trouble processing what has just happened: he shot Black Tom Cassidy, Black Tom Cassidy was blinded, then Clara stabbed Black Tom Cassidy through the throat.

With her left hand.

Well, technically, she could have stabbed him with her right hand, but that would have been much more inefficient because hands aren't meant to cut through throats like swords are. However, stabbing Black Tom with a severed hand was not what happened, and Clara -- Clara was still missing a hand.

Oh, god.

Carlos lets the paintball gun fall to his side and runs over to Clara. "Hold on," he says, looking at the bleeding stump. "We've got to stop the bleeding. I need a tourniquet--" He casts around for anything he could possibly use --

His eyes fall on Molotov's panties. He considers them very seriously for a moment, then shakes his head. He looks past the panties and sees the coil of rope on the floor.

"There we go. Hold still," he says, and his voice is remarkably calm, remarkably focused.. "This is going to hurt." If she lets him, he takes the rope and he takes a knife and wraps the rope around her wrist, and he loops the rope around the knife and begins to twist, end over end, as the rope tightens.

The anger and rage and adrenaline in her system start to ebb away and it's only when Carlos mentions the fact that she's bleeding that she realizes she's probably losing a lot of blood. She always assumed that her deaths in the Arena would be fast, not slow and bleeding out. All she can hope is that Carlos will be kind enough to kill her quickly so as not to draw it out.

Or offer to quickly pull together a tourniquet. Which she doesn't understand why when he can just kill her and put her out of her misery, but it's a kind, if painful thought.

She reaches to to him with her ha...arm. It still hasn't quite sunken in. It's not like she'll really have a chance for it to sink in since it's the two of them and...someone else, she's sure. She just can't remember who right now. She won't get the chance to adjust to it like she has with her missing eye. It's a blessing, really. But that doesn't change how utterly bizarre it is to stare at the bloody stump and not see her hand there.

And she can't stop staring, because it just doesn't sink in. The only reason she stops is when he starts wrapping the rope around her wrist and fuck it hurts to the point where she cries out in pain and almost pulls away. While the pain doesn't go away, the bleeding slows and eventually stops. "We should start moving, before whoever else is left finds us. We haven't exactly been quiet."

"Shh -- shh," Carlos says, as he twists the knife. "It's okay. Just a little more--"

But the bleeding stops. Clara might or might not notice, but it looks like Carlos has done this before.

He secures the knife with another loop of rope and ties it off.

"Yeah. We'd better get out of here." Carlos glances over his shoulder, as though looking for someone -- but who, he wonders, is left in the arena?

He will lead Clara off, get them away from the carnage, away from the bodies, with one last sad look at Thor and Darwin. His mind, though, is working: there were so many Tributes in the Arena, and so many mannequins when they exploded... A possibility begins to take shape in his mind, an impossible possibility: can it be that he and Clara are the last ones in the Arena?

It almost occurs to her to ask him where he learned how to do that. She can't think of very many scientists who are also experts with quickly doing a tourniquet after a huge fight with fatalities. She doesn't ask. Maybe later, when her head's a little more together and they're both relatively safe in the Capitol.

The fact that they're the last ones occurs to her for a second, but that's ridiculous. She has a painfully low score and Carlos...well. Not low, but he'd be a highly unlikely winner, truth be told. Especially when there were people in here like Tom and Thor and various other people who had been fighting for years.

"Where do we go from here?" Because, honestly, Clara's at a loss. Do they split up? Do they stick together? Does she have to kill herself or is he going to do it for her?

"We find somewhere to sit down," he says, eyes hard and jaw set. "And then decide where to go from there."

They can't go far, but they need to be out of sight of the food court, and out of sight of anyone coming to investigate. It's Glamor Nail Carlos ducks into, heading back behind a partition and sitting down in one of the many, many chairs.

He's running figures in his head. He saw no newcomers in this Arena, and newcomers tended to arrive in clusters. That means that the total number of Tributes in the Arena is predictable. If there was one song for every Tribute...

It's somewhat surreal for Clara to be back in the nail salon, considering the last time she had popped in was weeks ago when Molotov was still alive and using it as her base of operation. The thought that she somehow managed to outlive the eyepatch wearing Russian is enough to make her laugh. (Though, she's pretty sure she laughs a little bit because if she doesn't, she's pretty sure she's going to break down and cry and she can't do that. Not right now. She can do that when she's back in the Capitol and doesn't have Panem's eyes on her.)

It's obvious Carlos is thinking about something, though she doesn't know what that is. Though, from the grim look on his face, she's almost afraid to ask. "How bad is it?"

He makes sure to help her down as she sits.

"It's not good," he admits. "Even with the tourniquet, you don't have much longer."

One hundred and eleven Tributes at the start of the Arena. Three dead bodies in the food court, two living bodies here -- that left 104. If the average length of a song was three and a half minutes...

According to those calculations, and also according to the fact that the mall was eerily silent and no one was coming to investigate the disturbance in the food court, Carlos was growing more and more certain that he and Clara were the last ones left alive in the whole mall.

"Not without medical attention, really soon," Carlos adds, and the tone of his voice has shifted. It sounds like he's just come to understand something.

No matter what, I can't win.

He stands and backs away from Clara, step by slow step.

Her stomach twists at the shift in his voice, as if she's starting to understand something. If they're the last ones left, it's better to end this now instead of trying to drag it out. Carlos can be picked up by the Capitol and she can wake up tomorrow or the day after looking exactly like she did when they first brought her to the Capitol.

"So we better get this over with, then."

Clara's terrified. She's never thought about committing suicide before she was brought to this place. She's been faced with her own mortality before, obviously. There had been conversations with Alex about what would happen to David if the unthinkable were to ever happen and a lot of reevaluating her life after the bombing. But this is different. In almost all of those situations, death was a hazy concept that was somewhere in her future. This is her trying to prepare to face it head on.

"Do you want me to do it, or do you want to?"

"I'll do it."

Even if, by some miscalculation, they aren't the last ones in the Arena, Carlos doesn't want to leave this to chance. The best case scenario would be to let a third party win and leave Clara and Carlos as Tributes, but if that isn't possible anymore, Carlos has to be sure that he does not win.

He pulls the gun -- the real gun -- from his belt, and looks at it.

"Susannah gave me this," he said. "She said something about it, before she died. How does it go, again? I do not aim with my hand; he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I aim with my eye. I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind. I do not kill with my gun..."

...what came next? He hesitates as he tries to remember.

"Alright," she says, giving him a small though nervous smile.

A smile which falters a little bit at the sight of his...Susannah's gun. She doesn't know why, a gun would be more effective for this. Kinder to both of them, even. It means things will be over for her quickly and he won't have to deal with feeling her die by his hand.

Clara turns around and sinks down onto her knees, screwing her eyes shut. Carlos shouldn't have to see her face when she dies. "Just make it quick, okay?"

He sees her turn around. That's just as well: it's better that she didn't see this.

But really, what was the rest of that?

"I -- I don't remember how the rest of it went," admits Carlos. "I do not kill with my gun. Guns don't kill people; we are all immortal souls living temporarily in shelters of earth and meat."

No, that doesn't sound quite right, either, but against all the odds, Carlos finds it a little comforting. Carlos had thought it was regular old Night Vale weirdness when he had first heard it, but isn't it true, here?

He takes a deep breath, and knows that he will pull the trigger. He looks at Clara, and knows that if he points it at her, he could win: he could escape the Arenas. The Arenas...but not the Capitol.

No. When he pulls the trigger, the gun will be pointed at him.

"It's okay, Clara," he says, and she will hear the small, small smile in his voice. "Dying isn't so bad. There are so many things that are worse than dying."

He takes a deep breath and puts the gun against his temple, on the side opposite the Capitol brand.

"Please don't be mad. This is what I want. I -- I'm sorry."

This is it. One command, sent from brain to nerves to muscle, and it will be over. He's ready.

"Goodbye."

A bang, a splatter, a thud partly muffled by a lab coat, and silence.

He'll explain back in the Capitol.

Edited 2014-10-09 15:54 (UTC)

Throughout all of Carlos's talking, Clara just wants to tell him to get on with it. Not out of anger or frustration, but because she's tired and hurting and would love nothing more than to wake up in her bedroom in the Capitol and go apologize to Rose for not being able to rescue her from the debris during the explosion or explain to Alex that what he saw between her and Rose was (mostly) an act (while hoping that he's back to being her Alex).

She remembers hearing once that you will never hear the bullet that kills you. Obviously, that isn't true since you can die from so much more than a headshot, but this should be a headshot. She hears the shot and then the sound of Carlos falling and turns around.

God, she wishes she hadn't. He's covered in blood and his skull is in pieces and she's pretty sure she might throw up if she doesn't turn around and run.

So she does.

She only stops because she's lightheaded from the blood loss and the adrenaline that's ebbing out of her system.

God, she's tired.

Clara sinks down to the floor, vaguely aware of the announcement being made that she's Panem's new victor. She can't even bring herself to care, to yell at the fact that this is wrong and she shouldn't be the winner. That there has to be someone else, anyone else.

But she's too spent to do that and instead falls asleep.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If this arena were set in November we could have had a Black Friday Tom Sale

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[cw: child death]

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mmm whatcha sayyyyy

you only meant weeeellll.. wait

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[CW: Description of a traumatic amputation]

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