thearena | open;

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Who| Joel, Ellie, anyone else!
What| Joel shows up and gets tossed into the ring. Let's see how he does!
Where| I can put him just about anywhere in the museum you need - he'll be scoping the place out.
When| Mid-Week 1
Warnings/Notes| Joel is a highly suspicious dude and may assume anyone he meets is hostile until proven otherwise. This means he might punch first and ask questions later! I'll update this if anything else comes up.

Finally, please specify if you would like to meet Joel before he finds Ellie or after - if before, he'll be on his own, really worried about his baby girl, and slightly more prone to violence. If AFTER, you will probably get Joel and Ellie (two for the price of one!), and a lower chance of Joel trying to throttle you immediately.

"Put your hands in the air!" "She's not breathin'."

He woke with a start, phantom pain in his head and surrounded by - military? They were clearly military, but not any military he was familiar with. When they grabbed him, all sense went out of his head - normally, Joel would go quietly, because struggling tended to get people shot, but all he could think, all he could remember, was Ellie, her body so still. She's not breathin'.

"Where is she?" he demanded, over and over, landing a few punches but never able to break free. The pajamas they made him wear, the explanation given, all barely registered as he had only one thought in his head - find Ellie now. "What the hell did you bastards do to her?" he demanded yet again, attempting to yank his arm free when they came at him with a needle. Still, nothing. His shouts and struggles were in vain, and the next thing he knew, he was... in a parking garage?

With no one around to confront, and the knowledge that he was here to kill, or be killed, Joel quickly shoved his feelings to one side, dropping low and seeking a stairwell to climb to higher ground - it would take him a bit to realize the only way up was via elevators that actually still worked. They were far too slow and noisy for Joel's taste, but it became obvious that they were his only option, and he needed to get to higher ground, if he was going to find anything. Especially Ellie.

Joel moved quickly, quietly, and with one singular purpose: find the girl, and get the hell out of here.

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Joel's eyes narrowed at the man - he was relatively close to his age, actually, something Joel wasn't all that used to. Not many lived to middle age, anymore, where he came from.

"Are you tellin' me you've died - and been brought back - eight fuckin' times?"

He wasn't - quite - ready to deal with the implication that this was Ellie's third.

He nodded wearily.

"This is the ninth arena, since they started bringin' in folks from other worlds. I've been in 'em all 'cept for the first one." He sighed a breath out through his nose. "There's only a couple others that've been here as long as me."

Joel's fists clenched reflexively, as he glanced between Wyatt and Ellie. Shit.

"So they keep bringin' us back, as long as they find us entertaining? And then when they get bored of us, they kill us and leave us dead?"

"... Yeah. That's pretty much it," Ellie said with a slow shrug.

"I don't get it either, Joel, but that's where we're at."

"Yer new, an' Ellie ain't been here that long. If I were a bettin' man I'd say you'll be alright, however it ends for ya," Wyatt reasoned softly. It wasn't the most comforting thing he could offer, but it was all he had.

It was more than he could say for himself.

Shifting the shining canister in his arms, he turned away, moving toward a bench in front of a display featuring half a dozen brightly colored parades posed in a false jungle. He set the can down on the wood and started to open it.

"An' if ya win, ya shouldn't have to worry 'bout it."

Joel studied the other man, reading in him the weariness, the kind of weight on his shoulders that Joel himself held. It fit. It was absurd, but it all fit.

"Well, then I guess we'll just have to survive," he said, like that was easy, like that had ever been easy. But he'd found Ellie, at least. That was the important thing. He tried not to think about the rest of it.

"Do our best, anyway," Ellie said. She's made a pretty good run of it last time, she was pretty sure she could do it again.

The cockiness of youth.

She sat down on the bench next to Wyatt and kicked her feet. "What'd you get?"

Wyatt busied his hands with the gift, digging out the small note as Ellie and Joel made their promises behind him. Doing his damnedest to ignore the way the hallway seemed to grow darker. Colder.

A tomb.

"...It's from Timeaus," he replied, glancing at Ellie as she perched next to him.

Dropping the note back into the can, he pulled out the thick bottle, amber liquor sloshing gently.

"Whiskey." Of all things.

Joel, for his part, didn't care all that much what Wyatt got - he was on alert for any signs of danger. He'd let Ellie and her friend talk, if they wanted, up to a point.

"Not very useful," he commented of the booze. Drinking would just get you killed faster. Maybe make a molotov out of it, though it wasn't ideal.

"We shouldn't stick around here much longer," he pointed out, glancing at the nearest exit.

"We're fine, Joel. There's no food or weapons or shit in this section so people don't really stay here much." She turned back to Wyatt.

She was having the same thought as Joel.

"Whatever you do, don't make a fire with it. They've got this fucked up fire alarm system that rains down this-- I don't even know what the fuck it is. It's like water kind of only it's so cold that it feels hot and it burns your skin where it touches."

She pulled back her bangs to show a couple marks on her forehead where drops had hit. Luckily most of the liquid nitrogen had hit her onesie rather than her skin.

Shrugging to himself, he shifted his bag to tuck the bottle inside. He'd find something to do with it, one way or the other.

"I heard," he said, returning the bag to his shoulder. "Bumped into Ian after he tangled with it. If ya got a medicine kit from the Cornucopia, the stuff in the tube'll help."

Burning? Great. Burning water from the sprinklers. Joel hadn't encountered a working sprinkler system in years. That sure as hell would put a damper on any plans he might've had for planting some homemade explosives around potential campsites.

He supposed it made a sick kind of sense, to find weird ways to kill people. Probably had more entertainment value.

"Good to know."

"Only shit I got from the cornucopia was two fire starting kits," Ellie said mildly.

"You can booby trap with the sprinklers just make sure you're well the fuck away from them before you set them off." She may or may not have been playing with them before.

Woops.

He arched an eyebrow, imaging what it would be like to go out like that, and then trying not to. He could think of several ways he'd rather meet his Maker.

"You give me a head's up too, huh? Can't say burnin' alive is quite the way I'd like to go." Reaching out, he patted Ellie's shoulder, then turned to Joel.

The man hadn't said it, but Wyatt could sense that he wasn't keen on having somebody hanging around. The two of them against the arena... Wyatt couldn't pretend he didn't understand.

"There's a man in here," he told him, eyes steady on Joel's. Hoping he would trust in the importance of what he was telling him. "Goes by the name'a Aunamee. Tall fella, dark hair. Smile's like a snake and slithers one too. He will kill the both'a ya, or worse, jus' as soon as look at ya."

Booby traps. Yeah, that was his girl. Joel couldn't help the smallest inkling of pride swell up in his chest - as terrible as it was that she had to do things like that, he still couldn't stop that feeling of pride in how clever she was, how good at surviving she'd become.

"Aunamee." He repeated the name, filing the information away. Oh, Joel was sure that there were a lot of people here like that - there always were. But knowing at least one in particular to look out for, well, he wouldn't spit on that. "Appreciate it."

"Don't worry, Wyatt, you aren't on my hitlist," Ellie says with a grin, that was immediately lost at the mention of Aunamee.

"Fuck that guy," She says vehemently, despite never having met him. She'd seen enough of what he'd done to need to. "After the shit he pulled with Howard, a knife in his fucking throat would be too good for him."

"Ain't gonna argue with ya there, Ellie," Wyatt nodded.

Quite the way he'd come - so ready now to take justice into his own hands. But the bastard had threatened Max, and Howard, and everyone else he cared about. If the Capitol wasn't going to do something, then he was going to take up the slack.

"I'm lookin' for him, but ain't seen hide ner hair yet."

Joel could understand that - not that the name meant anything to him, but the sentiment was one which he could relate to.

"Good luck," he offered seriously.

She took that as the polite cue for exit and hopped off the bench to go and join Joel.

"We're going to find a place to hole up. Keep safe and lemme know if you need me, alright?" She raised her fingers to her head and made the 'call me' motion, despite never having had a phone, and knowing that Wyatt had never had one either.

She'd seen it in a comic book once, and it was awesome. Okay?

Wyatt's head tipped, eyebrow lifting in bemusement. The gesture was lost on him... but not the sentiment.

He nodded, digging up a smile for Ellie as he watched them pair off.

"Take care'a yerselves."

He looked a Joel, nodded again, and turned away. Trusting them at his back as he walked away into the gloom.

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