three Legionnaires sneaking through the town / the Capitol went and broke one's crown

[googledox]

WHO| Open to Lyle Norg, Rokk Krinn, and/or Brainiac 5 and YOU!
WHAT| The Legionnaires puttering around the arena
WHEN| Week 1 Catchall for all three Legionnaires (May add more weeks if not much changes for Weeks 2 and 3.)
WHERE| Pick a scenario!
WARNINGS| cw: With Brainy: mental illness/a character essentially being forced off their meds

A) The Newsstand

The Legion holed up in an old news shop, largely because there was no front window that was easily breakable, just a door and broken sign saying "Plastino's Paper Shop."

They'd blocked the back door. The front was broken on its hinges but they'd moved some of the shelves to create a hurdle there so that they could easily attack someone that came in. The staircase that led upstairs had been left open in case they needed to make an escape to the roof since there were ways they could make their way down. Around them were shelves with all manner of things. One had snacks and candy that was mostly moldy but had a few edible things that could be picked out of it. There was refrigerator, long since broken, that had glass bottles of beverages inside that had probably long since gone bad. And there were shelves and shelves of rotten newspapers, moldy science fiction novels, pulp magazines, and comic books with titles like "Startling Stories," "Captain Future: Wizard of Science!" or "Tales of the Amazing."

When one of them wasn't out scouting, Rokk and Lyle planned things in hushed voices, keeping watch on the door. As a way of essentially focusing his mind on something that wouldn't cause it to overclock, Brainy had occupied himself with reading the tattered, moldy remains of a pulp magazine called "Stories of the Downright Unusual," that had a sinister green alien on the cover with a big head and futuristic ray gun. It advertised a story titled "The Green Menace: They Came From Planet Onzar!" and insisted it would shock and astound the reader.

"Astounding? Not astounding. Terribly insensitive," he was muttering to himself, frowning at it. "Space racists. Humans have no imagination. None. Bouncing graviton particle beams off the main deflector dish - nonsense. Nonsense. Utter nonsense."

He was still having difficulty keeping it together after having his personality inhibitors removed and that was partly why the atmosphere in the little shop was a bit...defensive, as his two friends were feeling particularly protective.

Because of the broken front door, there were some that might figure the place to be unoccupied who might poke their heads in but with how run-down many of the buildings were, the three Legionnaires knew that there weren't many places to hole up that were much better. So they were simply prepared to either chat with anyone that showed up to try to turn them away nonviolently, or, if any intruders felt like trying to attack, to turn them away forcibly.

B) A House Near the Orchards

They'd opted for snares in the trees. People might go to them seeking fruit and snares were simple and non-fatal - elegant in a way. The idea was to trap a few people, bicker about how to be evil without killing them and breaking the bet, annoying them for a while, and letting them go free, unhappy at their own lack of creativity.

It was risky but they needed at least some theatrics supporting their story, so while it increased the risk of retribution in the short-term, it might lead to their chances of being revived each time being greater in the long term.

Everyone loved a good villain and short of a ridiculously slow dipping mechanism, what else could they do?

So they waited for potential victims, pressed down low on the roof of the nearby house.

[ooc: Any characters that get snagged will be released, though they might get spooked during the ordeal, unsure of if they're going to be killed or not.]

c) Scouting

Brainy was in no condition to be moving around much - he was muttering to himself enough that people would be able to hear him in the fog, so despite the fact they didn't really want to be separated, Lyle and Rokk took turns going out alone to scout for more supplies and to get the lay of the land in the arena while the other stayed to mind him.

Luckily, they had a handy pick axe they each got to take with them when it was their turn. Not so luckily, it seemed that other Tributes weren't the only threat out there in the fog...

[ooc: Indicate which scenario you'd like and which combination of characters you want to thread with. In the first scenario (A), it can be all three characters or any combination of two of them. (Rokk or Lyle can be out scouting if you want Brainy with just one of them, or if you want just Rokk and Lyle, Brainy can be asleep.) In the second scenario (B) it's automatically all three of them. In the third scenario (C) you can get Rokk or Lyle by themselves, just pick one and note where your character finds them.]

Comments

B

[justoutrunyou]

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID!!!!

Sandy cursed herself silently as she hung from the snare having let out a single yelp once it yanked her off the ground. Her bag of supplies had fallen off her and was just out of her arms reach but by the grace of panic she had held onto her wood cutters Axe.

After all that training! She cursed herself twisting by one leg while the other hung forward throwing her into a lazy spin. Pruna and Shepard would be so embarrassed of you right now you stupid, helpless little girl!!!

Her usual good natured self deprecation had taken a sharper turn into self loathing as she craned her neck to try and see where the snare was cutting into her ankle. She had gotten so wrapped up in the creepy fog and the thought that she was being followed she'd forgotten to keep her eyes on the ground as well.

Serves you right! After the bear trap you should always watch where you're stepping!

The memory of having her bone snapped by the iron teeth of a beartrap made her muscles tighten and she was even more determined to cut herself down. With an awkward swing she missed the rope by half an inch and sent her entire body into a dizzying, spinning swing.

She bit her lip to try and keep from crying out, and in the silence of her humiliation she heard voices.

[oredinary_hero]

"Looks like we caught something already."

Rokk was the first to reach their first captive, a suitably villainous smirk plastered across his face as he approached. Which promptly froze when he saw the young girl dangling upside down. She was younger than any of the other Tributes he'd seen so far - too young to be in this kind of situation. How was he supposed to deal with this without giving the game away?

The first order of business was to stop her spinning before she was sick. Raising a hand he reached out to grab the axe she held with his mag-field....

Right. No magnetics here. Instead he settled for catching and holding her arms so she couldn't take a swing at him with said axe.

It had to be painful with the snare digging into her leg, all of her weight hanging from there and no matter what impression they might be trying to make, leaving someone so young in pain just wasn't acceptable. But he could still make a show while trying to ease the situation. If Cos could hold both her wrists in one of his, then he could use the other arm to awkwardly support some of her weight under the pretence of presenting their catch for his team-mates to inspect.

"I was imagining something a little bigger though."

[googledox]

"Negative. Negative."

A figure that Sandy would find familiar walked up out of the fog, though the last time she'd seen him, he'd had his white implants on his cheeks. Now they were gone and the skin there was dotted with little scabs.

It possibly had something to do with why he was so twitchy.

"You're always so - so lowbrow. Rokk, there's such thing as class. We're not letting that change here. Tacky tacky tacky. Child murder is tacky. What next, stealing actual confectioneries from infants? Setting an orphanage on fire?"

He stuck out his tongue as if disgusted by the cliche.

Then he curled his hand near his head, clearly troubled by their trap catching someone so young, but he managed to make it look as if he was just irritable that this situation was not presenting the kind of villainy he found fun. Even as out of it was he was, he was trying his best to stick to their roles.

"I'm - I'm - I'm - not. I'm not changing to suit their kind of villainy. Our standards. We have our standards. And her name is Sandy. She's cut from our cloth - her father was a villain. Different path, different - Sandy, I'm going to let you down but you need to drop the axe so we can move it and so you don't impale yourself on it."

His tone was distinctly off, different from the calm, measured, and almost kind tones he'd spoken to her with the past. It was twitchy, anxious, half-distracted. He knew it was something that wouldn't inspire trust.

"And - and don't be alarmed by how I sound right now, the Capitol meddled with my mind. Scattered. I can't - I can't think. But still the same. These two are my friends but I already told you how we prefer to work. They won't hurt you because I've said so."

He shot a glare at Rokk that was purely theatrical as if Rokk was the brutish one that had to be kept in check. Then he puttered over to where the snare was tied to the tree to untie it so they could let her down.

A

[azulescarabajo]

Jaime wasn't doing too hot. He'd failed to get a hold of any of the supplies from the supposed Cornucopia and the idea that he might starve to death was slowly beginning to sink in. On top of that, shelter was becoming something of a worry--what was he supposed to do when it got dark? So he edged through the town, ducking down alleyways and hugging walls to try and keep himself out of sight. The door, with it's lack of windows, had attracted him and he peered into the dimness beyond for a few moments before deciding to try his luck. There was a clatter and a muffled curse as he tripped over the bookshelves and he tried to force his way through.

[googledox]

"Primary species: Human. Subspecies: Superhero. Potentially harmless," Brainy muttered to his friends as Jaime tripped his way in. "Blue. Order Coleoptera. Which makes sense. Superheroes are so often monophyletic."

Species species, countless species, countless planets countless stars they orbited around, countless galaxies, countless dimensions. His mind was roaming right now and having some trouble staying grounded.

[atippleoftransparency]

"I am not camping out with a super hero," Lyle muttered in reply, getting to his feet. "Super heroes are ridiculous. Especially teenage heroes."

He flapped his hands (one of them still bandaged and splinted from his out-of-the-Arena fight with Brainiac 4) at the sentient who just stumbled in -- grife, the kid couldn't be older than he was when he'd joined the Legion. Seemed like ages ago now.

"Shoo! Go away! Go find Punchy and the other heroic types!"

B all that you can B

[amoral_savior]

It was nearly dark by the time Topher ventured back into the orchard. He'd failed to find anything left at the Cornucopia and the one boarded up building he sneaked into was great for finding a few things to shove in a bag, but the rotten meal left on the table left a lot to be desired. Being out so close to dark in such a nightmare inducing place wasn't his first choice, but he needed something to eat and he remembered the orchard and it's fruit bearing trees.

He didn't remember this snare. Hanging upside down, with the blood quickly rushing to his head, Topher tried to cut the rope with a piece of broken glass. Unfortunately he wasn't as flexible as he hoped and his struggles left him spinning around and lightheaded. This was it, he was going to die like a fish strung up from a tree.

Spots began to appear in his eyes and his stomach tried to push out whatever was left of his early breakfast. If he had to vote between being impaled and this he would give his vote to being impaled.

"I'm-I'm gonna puke. I'm going to die from all the puke that is a-about to happen." He was so glad the Capitol had already dragged Dominic back to whatever cave they found him in.

Re: B all that you can B

[googledox]

Laughter echoed out of the fog. Giddy, off-kilter, out of control laughter.

"Insect. Insect dangling from a web."

He figured he might as well use it. He knew half of what he said made no sense and that could be unsettling to others.

Re: B all that you can B

[atippleoftransparency]

"Apt," Lyle opined. He also deliberately made noise, crunching brittle grass and scuffing gravel underfoot as he paced a circle around around their captive. "How long before you puke? 'Cause I'd appreciate it if you got that over with before I got in close."

B

[youbarium]

Carlos had found the orchard by accident; he was scouting around for food, and to be honest, this seemed almost too good to be true. There had to be a catch -- there had to be something horrible about these trees. They seemed normal, but given everything Carlos knew about the Capitol, odds were that they were not.

Carlos walked up to one and reached out to pick one of the fruits -- and the next thing he knew, he was hanging upside-down by his feet. His glasses tumbled off his face, hitting the ground with a soft thud, and the filthy lab coat he'd found in a pharmacy hung down from his shoulders, getting even dirtier as it brushed the ground.

Fortunately, he'd kept his head enough to keep his reaction down to a quiet gasp. Unfortunately, the tree had made a springing noise, and whoever had set the trap would definitely hear it.

Carlos hissed out a breath, possibly containing an expletive. Scientifically speaking, he was in a lot of trouble. He couldn't afford to die this easily. When the Legionnaires checked their trap, they would find Carlos, having given up on physically pulling himself loose, hanging upside-down and performing quiet mental science in the hopes that one of the results would be a way out of this mess.

[googledox]

Scientifically speaking, he was in the best kind of trouble, since the people who'd set the trap were ones that would let him out of it.

A familiar voice came out of the fog, though there was something...off about it.

"Unfortunate. Another ally. No fun for us."

[atippleoftransparency]

"Oh hey, it's Carlos."

That voice was also familiar. Slightly more so, since Carlos and the voice's owner were both representing District 10 in these crazy death-matches.

"Cos, this is Carlos. He lives on my floor, we do science together sometimes. Carlos, Cos. You remember, we told you about Cos at the bar? He's the one who likes sports."

A (locked to Lyle and Brainy)

[atippleoftransparency]

Cos' turn to patrol. Lyle's turn to stay and mind the shop -- and Brainy. Lyle checked the doors and windows again, just to settle his nerves. It didn't settle them much, but it did enough that he could sit down for a moment or two.

He hated this. No surprise, of course he hated the Arena and what the Capitol was doing, that went without saying. But this...this reminded him too much of the early days of the Blight. Not the fog and the empty town of course, but holing up somewhere without any idea about what was out there other than that it was hostile and that they weren't going to be able to save everyone. People were probably already dead, and some of them might not come back.

If nothing else, he'd learned from his experience with the Blight. Stay. Sit on your hands. Don't do something stupid just to be doing something, anything other than waiting.

He still hated it, though.

[googledox]

It probably didn't help to have someone babbling away, like the terrified refugees they were helping sometimes did. Filling the silence with anything they could.

He was still reading. And talking. And reading at the same time.

"Math. So much vacillating, isolating - isolating math. An island, a mountain. A small river flows by and supplies it with the necessary potability. It is a problematic country, in which roasted parts of equations fly into your mouth."

He turned a page.

"Temporal delta region damage. I should invert the capacitors, because the singularity seems to be around the ripples. The singularity plasma conduit is stumped. Fluctuating the critical gravity dampener damages fluctuations around the another galaxy. The removed gravity dampener singularity affects ripples inside the critical area gravity dampener core. Ripples in the fabric. Ripples in the fabric."

[atippleoftransparency]

Lyle hated the Capitol even more than usual, for doing this to Brainy. He wondered if they hadn't done this just to see if he and Cos could handle it, or if it would break their team in an "amusing" way. Or maybe they were just a pack of sprocking nassheads and thought this was "funny".

Either way, it was giving him a headache.

"What are you reading?" he asked, hoping that an interruption would at least temporarily divert the monologue.

[halfa_hero]

Danny had spotted the three figures on the roof, coming from the direction opposite the orchard. He could just barely make out Brainy's green skin from where he was, so he knew that there was very little chance of him being harmed if he decided to meet with them.

Which meant he could indulge his mischievous side, if only a little. Stealthily as he could, he climbed the ladder they'd left, and tip-toed up behind them.

"So...what're you three stooges doing?"

[googledox]

Brainy jumped so much he almost fell off the roof.

"Fenton."

How did he even do that? It had been near silent.

[oredinary_hero]

With a muffled curse Rokk spun around in a defensive crouch, raised his hand and-

Did absolutely nothing. Which in turn did nothing to stop his heart pounding like drum. He really, really hated being crippled like this.

At least whoever this was, Brainy clearly knew them so he wasn't a danger. Except for potentially making them fall to their deaths. Scowling at the teen he snapped, "And just what's it you?"

A

[celebrityskinned]

The worst part of the Arena is boredom. The human mind can't sustain vigilance for unending days without developing some sort of undiagnosable soul rot. As such, when Venus comes across a newspaper store, rather than continuing to walk in her search for Ellie and Kankri, she decides to investigate. At worst, she may be able to get some reading material for her little group of allies, something to pass the waking hours and distract from the awkward silence of pondering the ethics of hunting everyone else down.

The Amis turn a blind eye to where she goes. Enjolras seems to have made his peace with the fact that his girlfriend is, many, many times over, a murderer. She tells them she's looking for Ellie and Kankri and there seems a tacit agreement that as long as that's her primary goal they won't ask about whether she's killed anyone on the way.

She wants to find her teens. And she wants to find something to read. So she cracks open the door, slipping her chain into her deep pants pocket. She slips in with catlike grace, pulling a boxcutter from her pocket. The hand holding it hurts because of the burns she got earlier, on her hands and chest, but they've healed alright with Joly's care, and are currently wrapped with a washcloth and duct tape.

She grasps that boxcutter and slides into the building, identifying two people - not allies, not anyone she even knows, one sleeping and one chattering to himself. She prepares to lunge for the awake one and slice across his jugular.

And then she pauses, listening to the maddened rambling. It's a sick sort of sound, one she recognizes but has never fallen into herself. She remembers it from her occasional stays at the wards.

She hesitates, unsure of what to do here. She can't press forward and murder a crazy person like this (and dear God, she remembers Brainiac being obnoxious on the network, not like this). It's not even just the fact that it'll play terribly for the cameras that she can't do it.

She stays where she is too long to go unnoticed.

Re: A

[googledox]

Lyle wasn't supposed to be asleep but he was sleeping off his stomach cramps and all three of them were exhausted, especially because what little food and water they'd obtained from the arena environment had made them sluggish. Now that they'd received sponsor gifts - most of which were fine, unlike the one that had been mislabeled vegan - they'd decided to try to ration that out as long as possible before resorting to eating any food or imbibing any drink from the arena itself.

Brainy, who didn't need as much sleep as Lyle and Rokk, and whose mind was racing, was wide awake, despite the sluggishness. He spotted Venus and there was a momentary thought that he should wake up Lyle, that he should be afraid, but it passed as he reviewed and mentally improved his plans for a new time travel platform (maybe a sphere design this time?) He was also inventing a new type of star drive and ruminating over a case file he'd read six years ago about a ship accident with an experimental quantum foam slipstream device.

"They have to invert the singularity, because the core charge has been within the crystal matrix. The other sensor arrays botched the diagnostics around the plasma delta region and they have to reverse the polarity of the matter stream," he explained to her, very helpfully, his voice quiet so as to not wake up Lyle. He seemed to think he was imparting some kind of advice she would find useful.

"They - they died because they didn't pay attention to the manual, I always read the manual. I read every manual. Every - except the one for this. They did not provide any supplementary reading materials or formal instructions."

He picked at the small green scabs on his cheek, now mostly healed over. They made his face itchy.

"It's a vacuum of - of material sanity. It itches. The void itches."

Re: A

[celebrityskinned]

"Uh huh." It's gibberish. The trains of thought are gibberish. And yet Venus knows enough about the machinations of madness to know that as much as they obscure reality, they often reveal pieces of people usually inhibited.

Maybe it would be better to kill him, to quickly slice his jugular before someone worse uses his vulnerable state as an excuse to victimize him. Yet the calculus is skewed because he has a friend here, an ally to protect him and do as she does for Ellie and Kankri. Brainiac's fate isn't sealed quite yet.

She lowers the boxcutter and crouches down, closer to eye to eye.

"Don't pick at that." It sounds stupid, tumbling from her lips. Strangely maternal. It sounds like she's channeling her grandmother.

A - Brainy and Lyle

[bringinghopewithme]

Fire was risky, but with Jack human and vulnerable to hypothermia (what a weird state of affairs), Bunny wanted to be prepared to make one. Paper would burn better than the damp tinder available in the town, and even if everything wasn't soggy with fog, Bunny smelled something too off-putting in the trees and the fruit and anything else that grew in the town to be too eager to burn it.

He heard Brainy muttering as soon as he leaped (quietly) through one of the broken windows and froze, flicking one ear in the direction of the familiar voice, rotating the other to catch the sound of anyone else who might be around, but not speaking.

[googledox]

Brainy was sitting there reading a pulp magazine, and apparently he was regaling no one in particular with a story of his own.

"On her way she met a copy. The copy warned the Little Blind Text, that where it came from it would have been rewritten a thousand times and everything that was left from its origin would be the word "and" and the Little Blind Text should turn around and return to its own, safe planet."

A - [Brainy + Cos]

[oredinary_hero]

The back entrance was still securely blocked off. And the make-shift barricade blocking off the front hadn't gone anywhere in the last five minutes either. That didn't stop Rokk pacing back and forth restlessly, checking their defences, peering out into the street, organising their supplies.

He hated inaction. It was why he'd generally been more than willing to go out scouting in Lyle's place if the other Legionnaire was more inclined to stay with Brainy. They had a secure enough position that leaving them didn't place them in any greater danger and it let him feel like he was doing something. It wasn't that he couldn't be patient but there was only so much planning they could do, only so many ways to pass the time when there was no immediate danger. And if he were perfectly honest with himself, his own... loss still sat uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach whenever he thought about it.

So any distraction was welcome. Anything rather than just sitting around. With no immediate problems to face, nothing that needed doing and the constant knowledge they were under surveillance it was increasingly frustrating to just wait for the next attack or opportunity.

Despite his frustration he knew they were doing better than Brainy and Lyle had in their first Arena. The sponsor gifts had (mostly) been a much needed reprieve and given them some breathing room but they'd only last so long and there would be no guarantee of more. And there was the ever present problem of how they were going to get out of here - the Arena, the Capitol.

Granted, getting out of the Arena was in principle fairly simple but it still presented its own problems.

Exhaling loudly in frustration, Rokk began another circuit of the store, glancing over to check on Brainiac 5 as he passed him.

Re: A - [Brainy + Cos]

[googledox]

Brainy was huddled on the floor, wrapped in the sleeping bag but not sleeping. He traced a finger against the floor and seemed to be muttering equations under his breath.

When he finally came out of his own little inner world to notice Rokk's pacing, he said, "Half the battle in these arenas is psychological."

He adjusted himself where he lay, trying to get more comfortable, then gestured to his own head. "This. Is a mess at the moment, but in terms of coping with trauma already incurred and the inevitable trauma to come..."

He made a so-so gesture with his hand, implying that he was managing, that he'd psychologically readied himself and that even being off balance from the removal of his inhibitors, some of that emotional foundation was still there.

He was a mess at the moment but the peace he'd made with this place - at least in regards to what was going to happen to himself and his friends and what had already happened to himself and Lyle - was very real and solid despite it.

"You're also wasting calories with your pacing. Even with sponsors and rationing, unless you're killed before then, your caloric intake will be less than you need for survival before the end. Starvation is an inevitable trial they want us to endure and even sponsors start cutting off their gifts after a certain point. You need to keep your physical activity limited to the bare necessities. This is no different than a standard wilderness survival exercise in an area with hostile forces. We've all practiced this and even experienced it more than once."

Clarity. He'd had these odd moments of clarity here and there throughout the arena, and always it was when he was trying to help them with something. Apparently, when he felt they needed him, he was occasionally able to wrest some measure of lucidity for himself out of the chaos with sheer willpower. He still dipped in and out but he was mostly present.

He did it because this was Rokk's first arena, it was a traumatic experience for anyone, and he was clearly feeling anxiety. Brainy was not really the type that was good with guiding someone through feelings of any sort but he could try his best to prepare him for what was to come. Self-care, minimizing risk, minimizing physical exertion - that was vital in this sort of thing.