thearena | Art Attack [OTA]

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Art Attack [OTA]

Who: Max and You
What: Further exploration and more Tributes
Where: Second Floor
When: Week Two
Notes: Mask violence

Back on the second floor and hidden in a jungle-like display, Max swallowed one of the brown pills that had been handed to her prior to entering the tube to the Arena. She was told to take them when the shaking started. They helped and more than any supply she scavenged, these brown colored pills were going to help her keep surviving.

It took nearly five minutes before the tiny tremors stopped running through her body. She wanted to check for more food even though her body didn't really need too much, but it was still a hassle and concern to have to hunt for the little amount she did seem to need. Manticore had trained them to go long periods without food and water and now she found herself hungry within days of starting this "game."

Max found herself picking through empty bags; someone had searched this place thoroughly. She managed to find a few bags of chips and boxes of juice that were about to go bad. Satisfied she had found whatever was left to be found, Max slinked back into the exhibits were it was easy to keep an eye on the floor while remaining hidden. The strange displays still interested her. Were these really representations of the outside world?

Her small hand reached out to the mask of one of the dummies in the display she hid herself in. The mask was dark and frightening looking, but Max found it strangely transfixing. Manticore didn't have anything so distinctive and colorful. The mask easily came off the figure. Max turned it over to look at the back, and then slowly began to put it on, but a noise alerted her to someone arriving, and the mask was shoved in her bag as she pulled out her large knife and moved to intercept the other Tribute.

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The orange cape was more like a target than some sort of cool costume. Max silently moved through the displays, keeping an eye on that cape and wondering if she wanted to reveal herself.

She was surprised at seeing two girls her own age, not too surprised given she had noted kids when the Arena started, but to see they were still here, still surviving, it made her heart thump a little harder. Seeing how close the girls where and wondering if they too were like her and Don, she stepped out of the display. "That material is too bright. Someone will see you and kill you." It goes unsaid that she could have killed the girl.

A second later Pruna was fully between the new girl and Sandy, knife hovering at the level of her neck, though only close enough to be a warning and not an active threat.

If the girl knew the difference. "I would be killing anyone who did be even trying." Though the girl had a point, the material was too bright.

Max met the knife with her own, purely defensive but still just as dangerous as the girl's warning. "Not if they killed her first. Quickly. I followed you for 210 seconds before revealing myself." Her eyes glanced at the other girl. "A unit is as strong as its weakest soldier."

"I did be knowing you did be being there." She told her, though she frowned because she was right. Not that Pruna knew much about soldiers, but she knew that if someone was weak or slow everyone working for them could get caught and killed. But Sandy wasn't like that, she was getting better, and stronger.

Sandy recovered from her near death with a shudder and straightened up undoing the cape with a sigh and letting the fabric run over her fingers.

"Alright alright, we don't need to kill each other. We're all kids here right?" She tried to defuse the stand off.

"So why not focus on the big stupid adults who got us here in the first place?"

"They are outside." And to get there they needed to survive this place. Don had said they would come back to life after the Arena, but Max wasn't quite ready to rely on that piece of information.

Her eyes didn't move from the girl holding the knife. "You want to get there being less visible would help."

"It would be being." Pruna had to agree with this new girl, even though she didn't want Sandy to be upset. "You could be wearing it under your clothes, so no one can be seeing it."

She nodded at the other words, the adults were outside, to get enough power to kill them they had to win.

"Alright alright I get it. Stupid idea. I'm full of them." But she took Pruna's advice and stashed the fabric inside her pajamas for who knows what occasion in the future.

"Those adults may be outside but there's plenty of adults in here between us and them." She didn't like the idea of blaming other tributes for their misfortune but...well they were the adults. They should have had this taken care of by now.

"I'm Sandy." She introduced. "This is my girlfriend Pruna." flashing Pruna a look because it was so rare that she used the name the Capitol had given her that it felt weird. She wanted to say Ashley but not in front of the stranger. Hopefully Pruna wouldn't mind. And hopefully the introduction would start them down the path of not threatening each other with knifes.

There was a long pause between Sandy introducing both girls and Max finally speaking her own name. "X5-452." Offering only her designation would make things easier when the time came to kill, although she didn't have that barrier against Don. She had yet to meet back up with the turtle so it didn't seem like familiarity would be too much of a problem. "Kill me or move your weapon."

Pruna wrinkled her nose, "Be being well met X5-452." She wasn't sure why the girls name was numbers, but stupid R's name was just a letter- and she didn't really understand names anyways, so maybe number names were normal on her world.

She didn't move the knife though, she looked like she was seriously considering the first option.

Sandy meanwhile was stuck on the name. After all Pruna may not have had a name to begin with, but that was some kind of robot name from a science fiction flick.

Seeing that Pruna wasn't exactly eager to put her weapon down Sandy went first by sliding the crowbar into a holder she'd made out of some ripped up fabric. It hung off her back for now but if she needed to she could tug it free...probably.

"Bit of a mouthful. You got a nickname?" She offered hoping to cool off the tension before someone started losing blood.

"It's my designation." Nickname? She supposed that was what her brothers and sisters had given each other, but it was something personal. Something to be whispered in their bunks late at night. Something forbidden. "Your girlfriend should stand down first. There's two of you." As though the odds mattered in any significant way.

Pruna glared at her but slowly flipped the dagger over so the blade was pointed away from the girl and lowered her arm.

"Thank you." She spoke to Pruna first knowing how hard it was for her to stand down in a situation like this.

"See? Same side. Three girls with weapons and no desire to be here. You really wanna run around gutting people for other people's entertainment?" She proposed still trying to prove her worth with the social skills Pruna sometimes lacked.

Max's knife was quickly sheathed as she stepped away from Pruna. "It's the mission." There. They might be temporary allies, but when it comes down to it Max would be very willing to kill these strangers, and she'd bet everything that Pruna would do the very same.

She doesn't understand how this world works. That deep feeling of wrongness is there, but she also wanted to survive.

"It do be being." Pruna agreed with her nodding. Sandy's words were all well and good but Pruna thought that X4-452 was very much like her, and when Pruna had first came here she hadn't understood the importance of things like long term allies either.

"But you will need to be doing it again and again, and outside of the arena there do be being stupid people called sponsors, and they do be giving you food and things depending on how much they do be liking you." She explained, helpfully.

"So you do be needing to be killing but you do also be needing to be having allies, and you do be needing to be making people be liking you. It do be being a complicated thing."

It was humbling in a way to see Pruna taking charge and being more effective in a social situation. Somewhere in her pile of insecurities Sandy added yet another one to the list titled "Pruna not needing me" even though she knew Pruna was too loyal to abandon her even if that was true.

"Yeah, and let's be fair. They don't see it as a mission. To them it's a game and we're just the entertainment." It was impossible not to sound bitter about that.

She'd been sent things by people she didn't even know and this explained why. It was still hard for Max to separate game from mission. In her limited world they had been one in the same. Chasing down that strange man, tearing him to pieces, completing their task, this had been a very deadly and yet fun game to the unit. She really couldn't understand that harsh tone Sandy used to explain this world.

"Eventually we will have to kill even allies." Max nearly sighed. "This world overcomplicates its own game."

"Well yes, but if you do be picking good people to be being you allies then it will be being a good fight at the end." By good she meant strong, "It do be being complicated, but that's why you do be having to be being clever."

This little back and forth gave Sandy a moment to reflect on what it might look like if she and Pruna were forced to fight.

The little scene played out in her head quickly, because she took a sick sort of comfort in knowing Pruna would make it quick.

But that sort of showdown was unlikely. Impossible wasn't it? Just as impossible as dying four times and being brought back to life.

Back to reality, or whatever her life had become "There's more then enough people here trying to kill us that you shouldn't need to kill an ally. Especially if they're useful."

She instantly regretted that phrasing, while Pruna found Sandy fun and useful, this girl had only just met her. Even Pruna hated her the first few times they'd met.

Max didn't see how Pruna would find Sandy useful except, maybe, for the same reason Max found the small group of French people useful. Eventually everyone outlives their usefulness. She doesn't think the two girls would like to hear that small fact said out loud.

"Is a good fight necessary to ensure they accept your win?" Perhaps she should add a good fighter to her small group of allies.

"Yes." Pruna nodded, "Well... I would be thinking so. If you do be being boring I do no be thinking you could be winning." Surely the gamemakers would send some monster to eat you if you were not being exciting.

"I dunno..." Sandy paused looking thoughtful. "The last guy was really boring! In fact he didn't do much of anything but hide in the last arena up till there were only three people left. Then the big alien guy killed Ellie, and then the little curly haired guy came outta nowhere and attacked the alien guy and he won. Not as good a fight or as interesting as some of the others." She shrugged.

"He survived." Which sounded like doing more than enough. She doubted he ran around in a bright orange cape. "Allies and a good fight." Max was going to make sure these stayed in the front of her mind.

"He did be doing that, and he do be being really smart." Pruna told her, she liked Enjolras.

"Be remembering those and you will be doing okay." She told X5-452 solemnly.

Art Attack [OTA]

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