ARENA 10-Placid Hollow

[etcircenses]

The Tributes are taken early in the morning, most of their support teams seeming in good cheer as they dress them in warm clothes, getting them to their tubes. There is obvious comfort in the familiar for the prep teams, and they chatter with, or in some cases, over the heads of their Tributes as they get them ready and load them up.

20

19

18…

If the Tributes could see the area they are passed up into, they would see a deeply overgrown, dilapidated town green, with a large bandstand rotting away in the middle. The spoils of the cornucopia are not gathered in one spot, instead scattered throughout the thigh high grass and weeds around the town green.

Around the edge of the green, the old business stand a silent sentry, looming out of the fog as it thins and winds into them, providing much desired cover.

8

7

6…

But the Tributes cannot see the ground around them. The fog, thicker even than it will be in the rest of the arena, makes the world small around them. The sound of the count down echoes strangely, the tributes seeming too close as the fog brings sounds of their breath, their coughing, the snap of twigs under their feet right to ears of the other Tributes. But with the fog bringing visibility down to only a few feet, it's hard to tell what is a true danger, and what is only the fog playing tricks on them,.

3

2

1

The gong rings out, and the countdown's voice announces "the Arena is now open". The Games have begun.

Comments

[nunpunching]

"Ain't no big," Punchy says with a shrug, as if completely not noticing the glare or the pain on Clara's face. He also says it as if he singlehandedly swooped in to save the day, and like Alex's literal curbstomp wasn't a factor in the least. Clearly, Punchy had a handle on it all along. "And I ain't said robots ain't peeps. That's some old-ass bigotry."

Some of the most popular heroes in his day are robots. One of his professors was a robot! Aside from the jokes about sticking magnets instead of pins on his chair, the kids treated him like any other stodgy-ass tool.

"I'll take care of this for you." He takes his jacket and uses it as a sort of towel to wipe the monster's grime from his face, then covers the dead beast's 'face' with the garment and starts to drag it out towards the doorway by its hands.

Finally, he looks at the fine lady in front of him, the one who just said 'husband' as if that would actually mean anything to a hormone-addled teenager in a death Arena (spoilers: it doesn't). He straightens up from dragging teh walker. "Nah way, shawty, you's like a ten and he's a six. He best be packing some mad shit in the toolbox to be hitting up on such a fine honey, you catch my drift?"

He tilts his pelvis forward a bit in case she didn't. He also tries to give her a smoldering grin but instead he just looks like he's waiting for an optometrist to put eyedrops in.

[seestheman]

Clara knows, on some level, that the kid's speaking English. Maybe it's the fact that she's still amped up and somewhat panicked or maybe it's his abuse of the English language, but it takes her a couple second to figure out what he said. The only thing she understands right away is that he'll take the creature outside and that whole ten/six thing (which she would never agree with, though she might be her bias showing). Everything else just doesn't make sense.

And then it does. For a moment she wonders how she failed to get such an obvious attempt at innuendo. Clara turns bright red, which could be from embarrassment or how pissed she is that this kid doesn't seem to know when to stop. Which ever one it is, it makes her stammer as she tries to find the words. "Yeah, I catch your drift. And none of that's your business." Which, alright, may not be the best comeback, but it gets the point across at least.

Months ago, after Clara had first signed the papers to give OmniCorp the okay to save Alex, it had struck her that their marriage was about to get incredibly complicated. Sure, there were the obvious things involving their personal lives (and at some point, hopefully in the Capitol instead of here, they were going to have to talk about it), but there was the fact that people were bound to call their relationship into question eventually.

Clara just thought it was going to be from the nosy old woman a few doors down, her mother, or from some newsblogger instead of a horny teenager.

Pulling herself together so that she isn't stammering or as bright red, she fixes him with a mom-look in the hopes that it might put him off of trying to get in her pants. "Listen, kid, you need to get a few things straight. One, like I said, I'm married. Happily married. Two, we're in totally different leagues. C, you're really selling my husband short by saying he's a six. He's an eight, at the very least. Personally, I think he's a ten. And four, since it wouldn't hurt saying it again, I. Am. Married."

[yourmove]

Alex actually stands there with his mouth hanging open in a little stunned gape. You'd think several hundred pounds of cyborg giving someone the stink-eye would teach him some respect, fast. Swinging the other way to hit on his wife while he's standing right there? He's not even remotely prepared.

He gets snatches of the slang: a lot of it's stuff he's heard before on the job but because it's never been directed at his wife, it's like hearing it for the first time again. Did he seriously call Clara a "shawty" and - wait...wait, yeah, he did make a dig about his plumbing (plumbing that honestly, Alex has no idea if he still has at this point, but anyway). Beside the point. His face starts to cloud all over again once they get into fire honey territory, up until the point where the kid tilts his hips in what might be the lamest hip thrust he's ever seen.

That puts Alex squarely between being pissed off and biting off a laugh welling up. Between finding Clara, the attack, and now this? It's funny - like hysterical funny, not funny-funny - and he finds his mouth twitching as he struggles not to grin.

Good thing he's letting Clara handle this one. From the way she lets it rip, he figures she's got this way better than he does.

"Done hitting on my wife?" Alex says once he's sure he won't smile. He keeps his arm looped around Clara. "You got a name?" It was that or Alex was forever calling him Punkass Kid in his head.

[nunpunching]

That's way too many numbers for Punchy to follow. He watches Clara chew him out, head bobbing a little as if he's sort of nodding but mostly just showing that he's, supposedly, listening. He's not, really; rejection stings, and he'd rather not absorb it past the initial first few words. He'll just let that fly over his head.

His face turns red, and the freckles that dot his right cheek vanish into the blush. He hunches up his shoulders and bends over, muttering something about getting "bossed up" and "honkies". He manages to drag the walker corpse to the window he bust through and then lift it up and dump it outside in the most sulky, comically teenage way possible.

Yes, Clara. He did actually think he had a shot there. He also thinks you're a cracker.

"Name's Punchy." Which is totally a cooler name than Alex or Clara - I mean, really, dude's a robot and he's going by Alex? Not Killtron 3000 or Superbot? Missed opportunity there.

There's still a giant smear of walker brain on the floor, but Punchy doesn't seem to think that'll be an issue.

Punchy holds his hands out. "Y'all peeps chill? Because rescue by Punchy comes with a price, and that top dollah is that you don't be icing no other motherfuckers on my watch."

[seestheman]

Clara's used to hearing muttering when chores (because with the muttering and the dragging something outside, this feels more like he's doing chores than disposing of a body) are being done. She has a son who does it a lot, though usually his muttering is more along the lines of it being "dumb" and "boring." Honestly, thinking of her son would make this moment almost heartbreaking if it weren't for the fact that she's now imagining David saying "honkies" and that's just hilarious and it's taking all of her willpower not to start laughing.

Also, what kind of name is Punchy? It makes him sound like he's the long lost, bar brawling cousin of the Seven Dwarves. Not that she's going to say that out loud, because that's rude.

"I think we're pretty...er...chill." Clara doesn't speak teenage boy. Hell, she isn't even sure if this is how teenage boys talk or if this is just Punchy's own personal, highly confusing way of speaking. "And I don't think we'll be...um...icing?...any motherfuckers, period. So, I don't think you have anything to worry about."

Clara leans into Alex a little bit, as she looks up at him, barely able to hold back the grin that's threatening to come out at how utterly ridiculous all of this is. "You weren't planning on icing motherfuckers, right baby?"

Yeah, she knows just how ridiculous it sounds coming out of her. Which is probably part of the reason why she's giggling just the slightest bit.