thearena | Arena 12 - The Spaceport

Arena 12 - The Spaceport

As usual the Tributes are woken up early for the start of the arena, leaving the Tribute Centre before dawn. A few hours ride in a hovercraft delivers them to their destination where their excited prep teams will outfit them in skintight suits that are colour coordinated by District (D1 is White, D2 is Red, D3 is Orange, D4 is Aqua, D5 is Purple, D6 is Pink, D7 is Light Green, D8 is Blue, D9 is Yellow, D10 is Dark Green, D11 is Lavender, and D12 is Black) over which they will be put into what is instantly identifiable as a spacesuit, complete with oxygen tank and helmet before being loaded into the tubes.

They rise up into what appears to be outer space and immediately upon emerging from the tubes Tributes will find themselves floating upwards with a length of rope the only thing holding them to their podiums. The countdown crackles out from speakers built into each Tributes helmet.

20

19

18…

The Cornucopia sits in the middle of a dusty crater with buildings surrounding it, made up of a number of chained down cases and cubes in limited numbers. Cubes which sharp-eyed Tributes will note look like they fit into the slots beside the doors that lead into the spaceport.

8

7

6…

The mirrored visors of the uniformly white spacesuits make it impossible to tell friend from foe. Tributes fighting for goods will have to risk harming their friends but the alternative, floating off into space or suffocating when their oxygen runs out, leaves them little choice.

3

2

1…

The gong rings out and the countdown’s voice announces, “the Arena is now open” before the line goes dead. The Games have begun.

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The suit was a warning, but the endless black of stars arcing overhead still made his head swim. Deep space? But this was wrong. The primitive spacesuits and propulsion technology of this planet suggested they couldn't even make colonies outside their own solar system. And this was supposed to be an "arena." A simulation then? A damn good one.

He leaped towards the cornucopia, keeping close to anything he could grab to change his trajectory. He realized he'd be flying closer to danger if he chanced this, but he also knew many Tributes had no experience with unaided flying, and next to no working knowledge of space travel. He had an advantage. He also knew that without the usual planetside comforts, materials and food would be scarce. Those cases were valuable. His sharp eyes, honed from sniping with psionics, quickly saw that the cubes seemed to be for the slots next to doors. He also saw that the suits and helmets completely disguised who was in them. Great. He wasn't in a hurry to kill anyway, so he concentrated on snagging one case and a cubekey. He made it past the airlocks, and ripped off his helmet as soon as a hiss and an indicator light announced the arrival of oxygen. It impaired his peripheral vision.

A sudden headache bloomed, heralding the return of his powers. Someone screamed—ah, no, just the voices of the soon-to-be-dead back again. He grimaced, quickly recalibrating his mind for shouting his own thoughts just so he could hear himself think. But he supposed having his motley collection of powers back was a good thing. No need to run when he could fly.

Psionics thrummed, and a strobing red and blue glow spread around his body. He jetted quickly down the hallway and around the nearest corner, followed by his floating helmet, also wreathed in oscillating red and blue. Hidden sufficiently enough for his standards, he cut the glow and stripped down to his yellow (ehehehe) jumpsuit. He originally thought he'd ditch the heavy spacesuit in gravity zones, but if he had his powers, weight was no object. He shoved the cube in his case and floated that up for hands-free carrying. He reattached the helmet to his spacesuit, floated it, and experimented by making one of its arms wave.

Decoy in place, he sent it flying ahead of him as he skulked a short distance behind, glancing back over his shoulder more often than was necessary. He knew both he and his new puppet were glowing targets, but he was still in an area swarming with people anyway, apparently doing his best visual impression of a banana in space. Once he got away from people and stealth became more useful, he'd ditch his flashy powers except for fights, find a tarp or something to cover himself with, and check the contents of his case.

[[ ooc: plot with Psii here! ]]

Terezi has to admit that she's making out rather well. No gross injuries, and her list of supplies is growing, even without making a rush on the Cornucopia. Her thoughts are constantly several leaps forward in the future, trying to keep track of all the different ways that things could go down.

She smells the flashes of red and blue before anything else, bringing her to a halt in the middle of the corridor. It doesn't take her more than a few seconds to figure out who she would find if she went to investigate those lights. Even without her Sight, it would be pretty easy to tell by the color combination alone. No one else produces quite the same appleberry lightshow that the Captors do.

So, rather than hiding or making a more cautious approach, Terezi strolls her way up to what she already knows to be the floating spacesuit, clad in her bright orange jumper.

"Ambassador Appleberry!" she greets with vigor, taking the suit's hand and shaking it heartily in both of hers. "What a delightful surprise! I didn't know you were out for a stroll on a fine evening such as this! I must say, you feel even more grossly underweight than normal. And quieter, too! Such terrible manners, not even greeting me with a hello! Come, let us walk--"

And with that, she will loop her arm around behind the spacesuit and start steering away from the main hallway.

Psii's stomach dropped to his boots. He'd dreaded this, running into someone he knew even remotely. They were all told to kill each other. How the hell were they supposed to get around that? It was awkward all around. At least he hadn't had a vision of his death at the hands of a girl too blind to notice the eye-searing orange of her jumpsuit. He remained where he was, hidden—he hoped.

The spacesuit flopped like a rag doll as she tugged it, and he mentally scrambled to make it move like a floating troll should. Leg goes here, arm goes there.... Psii briefly raised one of its hands in a belated greeting gesture.

This was so fucking stupid. The helmet's mirrorlike glass prevented Terezi from seeing the lack of a face inside, but how long could he keep this up? He didn't want to run away outright, afraid of losing an ally. But he didn't want to let his guard down either. He crept slowly behind and let her frog march his spacesuit where she wished, hoping she'd get down to whatever business she wanted him for.

Terezi is fully aware of the occupancy of the suit that she is currently leading to a side corridor where they won't be disturbed. That doesn't mean that she can't have a little fun with it.

"Mr. Appleberry, I must say that your silence is delightfully charming! Strong and silent, just my type! Would you entertain me with a waltz, perhaps?" She escorts the suit to turn and face her, placing a hand on it's waist and another on it's arm. What happens next is most decidedly not a waltz, but it is at least a dance of some kind.

"Commissioner Berrybottom has expressed his deepest appreciation at the level of commitment that you have employed towards keeping the peace between our parties. He looks forward to your continued cooperation in such dire times as these. We need a leader, Mr. Berrybottom. A role model, a guiding star. Someone to point the way to a brighter and more peaceful future for all of dragonkind."

Psii frantically directed the spacesuit into "dancing" with her, but it was too floppy a dance to be realistic. It was as if the spacesuit had human arm flailing disease. Psii quietly brought a palm to his own face. He wasn't even sure why he was trying to keep up the charade at this point. He emerged from around the corner of the corridor when he felt it was safest to do so, a lanky yellowblood banana.

"'Berrybottom'? Theriouthly? Thith ith fucking thtupid, thtop danthing around with my thpathethuit like a wiggler. Although I gueth.... you are a wiggler.... Anyway, that'th my decoy, not your date."

He cut his psionics, and the spacesuit flopped worse than ever.

Terezi laughs easily at the flopping suit, grinning brightly as she turns towards the emerging troll. She keeps a hold of the suit with both hands, even though it hangs on the floor now without the suspension of psionics.

"I know. I was just wondering how long it would take you to come out. Took longer than I thought. I almost resorted to pulling out the big guns." Though what exactly 'the big guns' are, she doesn't say. She holds the suit out to him. "You can have your spacesuit back. It's a wonderful conversational partner. You should really get to know it."

He picked up the heavy suit with his mind and shunted it near the corner to trip up any intruders. Getting to know it, sure.

"By 'big gunth' you mean more fatal formth of danthing? No thankth. What did you track me down for, anyway?"

To give him a taco? To team up? To cull him at the behest of her clown friend? Well, at least Psii knew that wasn't happening anytime soon. He'd have had a vision if he was about to die. He found this thought a relief. He liked Terezi well enough. She'd introduced him to delicious tacos. Psii didn't like that the arena would encourage all the violent habits of Alternian life to catch up with him.

"I didn't track you down," she informs him, leaning against the wall casually as if she hadn't a care in the world. Psii isn't the only one with a psychic heads-up for danger, and she's making liberal use of her abilities while she can.

"I discovered that it was my fate to run into you, and also that you are going to be nice enough not to psychically punch a hole through me--or any other grievous forms of murder. Given those two facts, I thought I should come say hello. ...And maybe chat with you about something."

Her fate? Was she a prophet, too? He didn't want to entertain the thought of going up against another psychic in this arena. At least for now, they were tentative allies.

"Oh boy," he said, lifting his brows sardonically. "If it'th about not doing disheth, that wathn't me. I alwayth clean up after a wild taco-making frenzy." Plus, the thought of a slave cleaning up after his messes made him uncomfortable. He kept his respiteblock spotless for the same reason.

He was half joking of course. Clearly this was something more serious than an altercation over hive chores.

"This has nothing to do with your janitorial abilities, I can promise you that," Terezi quips back easily, despite the topic that's weighing on her mind. She tries to keep a bit of that casualness, but it's clear that things are about to get a little more serious by the way her expression wanes.

"It's about... the Initiate." There's a bit of hesitance in that, not only for her own misgivings about how the Psiionic might react, but also for using that name to begin with. "I heard about what he told you, that his life was forfeit for you... I wanted to make sure that you understood that isn't true. He was upset, and he shouldn't have promised that."

He took his cue from her, sobering quickly. He went through too much shit since he was hatched to constantly pretend like everything was alright. Sure enough, all illusions of tranquility were dashed. A prickling rose at the back of his neck at the mention of the clown.

"If he doethn't hurt my friend, I don't have to. Thame goeth for anyone elthe who trieth shit, whether they've promithed me anything or not," he said carefully. A pause. "Didn't know you were friendth with him."

Casual. Right. Nervousness made him neglect to mention that he didn't particularly enjoy killing. If it meant protecting Signless, he didn't want to appear weak.

Friends. Right. That's what Psiionic thought they were. She seems a little uncomfortable about that. Her gut instinct is to let him keep believing that, but she doesn't want to compromise what little trust that he might have in her. If he found out later--and he was bound to before long--then he might think that she was purposely hiding it. Perhaps it's better to be upfront now.

"I won't hide things from you. He's my matesprit. I told him that I would talk to you, since he doesn't think that you'll listen to him." She says like she thinks he might listen to her better. She's not sure if he will or won't, but she has to give it a try.

"He cares about you a lot. I was there when you didn't come back the first time. He was so hurt... I thought the loss was going to break him. He would never hurt you--and he would never hurt Signless, either. They've had fights in the past, and I'm sure that you'll see those before long. The gamemakers like replaying those kinda of things for the drama. But that's completely in the past. I can promise you. They've bother changed for the better."

"I'm thick and tired of people talking about how that clown cared about me! I don't even want to think about it!"

The thought made him queasy. Moirallegiance was, to him, the most emotionally vulnerable quadrant. He certainly had a lot of traumatic emotional hangups from his time in slavery, oppressed by trolls Initiate would have called brothers, those part of his cult. Psii forced himself to be quieter, knowing Tributes were crawling all over this part of the arena.

"I plan to avoid previouth arena footage of Helmsman and anyone he wath connected to. But I'm thtill going to watch that clown carefully in perthon. My betht friend.... ith moirailth with a clown. We've already talked about that to each other, tho thave your breath. I'm not on a clown hunt. I'd rather avoid him if pothible, even outthide arenath."

There's a flinch in Terezi's movements when he answers back with that degree of emotional outburst. She hadn't meant to make him angry. It honestly hadn't occurred to her that others might have mentioned it already--though Signless should have been the obvious realization there. He knew both of them and cared about both of them.

"Fine, fine. Sorry." She holds her hands up, trying to play it off like she hadn't been on edge a moment ago. For all her bravado, adult trolls are still a little scary when they get riled up--especially psychic ones.

"Things aren't as cut and dry as they were on Alternia. That's all I'm trying to say. There's a lot more to him than just being a clown. ...There's a lot more to a lot of us, I guess."

Psii still looked like he wanted to blast her and the surrounding walls, but thankfully he wasn't tempted to. Terezi hadn't done him any wrong.

"Thure thome clownth might be leth murderouth than otherth, but they thtill belong to a cult that thayth trollth like me detherve all the punishment they dish out. Fuck that. I don't want anything to do with him and hith fathepaint. He'd better thtay out of thpitting dithtanthe."

As the thought occurred to him, he turned his head and spat to the side. He was a classy troll.

"You done? becauthe I don't want to thtand around lithtening to you defend him when we're thuppothed to be avoiding getting killed."

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Arena 12 - The Spaceport

Psii || OPEN

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