[benny hill theme intensifies]

[youbarium]

Who| Carlos + anyone in the Arena!
What| Catch-all post for Carlos in weeks 1 + 2! The Gamemakers are trying to kill him, so he's encountering all kinds of nasty beasts and horrible monsters that always seem to find him. If you want to run into him during the superspecial hell arena, there's a prompt for that! Watch this space for week 3 edits.
Where| All over the arena. Seriously, he's on the run from horrible monsters and will be roaming around everywhere. Specific locations are in the comments, but if none of the prompts strike your fancy or you want Carlos to stumble on you, just specify where you are in your reply.
When| Weeks 1 + 2 for now
Warnings/Notes| Horror? Monsters? Gore? Dark humor? Welcome to Night Vale.
Also! All prompts but the first one involve him in a situation where Carlos could use a rescue. However, if your character would try to kill him, feel free to tag into this as well, since the Gamemakers might very well try to steer more murderous characters towards Carlos. I do want him to survive/escape since his death is planned already, but you are 100% free to injure him!


Carlos didn't know what was going on. His first few days in the Arena had been, well, almost normal. They had gone as well as could be expected: he had gotten his hands on a lab coat, gotten some chemicals from old houses, stripped some cars, and had fashioned some makeshift weapons. Carlos knew better than to hole up in a house permanently; last Arena, he and the others had been punished for not being exciting enough, and Carlos's life was riding on putting on a good show. Therefore, Carlos had fashioned traps that he could carry with him during the day and set around his camp at night. It had been a lovely system, painful but nonlethal, and Carlos had had an exciting encounter or two that would probably up the drama.

So what if the monsters seemed to have an uncanny sense of where he was? It wasn't so bad. Carlos could outrun them. He had a lot of experience in doing that. He had also received his share of sponsor gifts, all of which had made the week infinitely easier, and the note from Cecil was folded up and securely tucked into the pocket of his D10 jacket where it wouldn't come loose and fly away as he was fleeing spiders or dogs or shambling monsters.

And so what if cracks had begun to appear uncannily close to him? Cracks appeared in the ground all the time -- it was one of this Arena's hazards. They always made a sound, and he rapidly learned to jump to steadier ground -- not to mention stick to landmarks and important features of the Arena that the Gamemakers wouldn't want to destroy.

It wasn't until the third building in a row nearly collapsed on him that Carlos began to suspect. None of the other houses were collapsing, and the one he had been in had shown no signs of structural weakness. He'd checked.

The cloud of poison-gas confirmed it, Carlos thought as he ran through the town, lab coat held up over his mouth to shield his lungs from the toxic green vapor: the Gamemakers were definitely trying to kill him. This confirmed Carlos's fear -- that his act of dissent in Ian's rescue meant that the Capitol was through with him and intended to kill him as quickly and quietly as possible, with no chance of resurrection. It only filled him with more determination to stay alive.

By the time the air raid sirens went off, Carlos had given up going in houses at all, since if they didn't collapse right away, they were invariably full of spiders waiting to drop on him from the ceiling. He had given up leaving town, since cracks would open up under his feet. And he had given up on getting more than a few hours' sleep at a time.

Comments

ANY HOUSE | WEEK 1 ONLY

[youbarium]

These monsters sensed heat and movement. Carlos had seen that before. Therefore, the best place to hide from them was somewhere thermally insulated. Somewhere reinforced. He had the perfect hiding-place -- easy, he had seen monsters with this sort of prey-tracking system before. Carlos couldn't spend all his time here, of course: it would be a pretty poor show if he spent the entire arena hiding, but at least it was a safe place to sleep.

Perhaps you're poking around this old house looking for food and you stumble on him. Perhaps you're just here hiding yourself and you happen to see him emerge. Either way, there is a man in that refrigerator.

Oh, and if you get too close to it, old and rust-covered and on its side, look out: there are tripwires set up in the dark, and if you set one off, it'll spray you with bug venom. Not deadly, harmless enough if you wash it off, but don't let it get in your eyes or mouth.

Re: ANY HOUSE | WEEK 1 ONLY

[pythianjudgment]

There have been very few cases where being biologically cooler in temperature has been a boon to survival. For once, Terezi is finding that being an alien is having it's own perks. Granted, it doesn't make the heat any nicer, but the creatures bother her less. And she can deal with the heat.

For the moment, she is scouting out the house, searching for more foodstuffs. She managed to gather together some supplies in the initial fray, but she knew it would be better to stock up before all the good stuff was rifled through.

When she gets to the kitchen of this house, however, she sniffs about in the darkness, only to notice the tripwires on the ground. Clever. Someone is obviously trying to protect something. What, she has no idea, but if there's traps, then there's something worth protecting. Carefully and quietly, she makes her way over to the fridge, stepping cautiously over the tripwire. She sniffs around the outside of the fridge and finds that it's slightly open, but there's no telling if it's been further booby-trapped on the inside or not. The rust and decay is thick enough in the air that she's having difficulty smelling whatever is inside the enclosed space.

So, she sets her bag down and pulls out her length of rope. One end gets tied to the handle of the fridge, and the other is thrown over a ceiling fixture for leverage. Then she steps back over the tripwire with her back, dragging the other end of the rope with her.

Once there's a reasonable few feet of distance between her and the fridge, she pulls down on the rope, yanking the door open.

[youbarium]

"Aaaah!"

Carlos wakes with a start and a startled cry; he slept fitfully in the Arena in any case, and there was no one around to take watch for him. His hand flies to the spray nozzle he'd taken from one of the cars and made into a makeshift bug-venom weapon and he leaps into a crouch, staring around looking for the source of the disturbance.

It takes him a moment to trace the path of the rope from the refrigerator door to the ceiling to the troll, but when he does, his MacGyvered weapon is pointed right at her. She's out of range, of course, and Carlos wouldn't shoot unprovoked, but she has no way of knowing that. Carlos is on the defensive, even after -- especially after -- he recognizes her as...

"You! You're one of the trolls, aren't you?" His voice is a harsh whisper, defensive and startled, but not without curiosity.

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi jumps when Carlos shouts, nearly dropping the fridge door back onto him. She takes a step back, still clutching the rope in one hand. She's not giving up that resource for anything.

"Yes?" Terezi's answer is less certain than she means it to be, if only because she's pretty sure that anyone could tell she's a troll just by looking at her. "Do I look like I'm wearing a costume or something?"

The answer is obviously no, so she doesn't bother waiting for a response. Out of all the things that could have been in that fridge, she wasn't really expecting there to be a person... Especially not a person pointing some weird nozzle thing at her. Terezi reaches for her own spray, instinctively.

"Do you like sleeping in food storage cases, or was the bed already taken?"

PARK | ANY TIME

[youbarium]

At least this area of town seemed relatively quiet. Carlos set his makeshift pack of supplies down in the hollow of a large tree and looked around, hands on his hips, to get his bearings. It was hard to do, through the mist, but Carlos stared out into it anyway, breathing out a long sigh.

There didn't seem to be anything in the immediate area, or anyone for that matter. He could probably sit down for a few minutes and catch his breath, and think.

Unfortunately, Carlos was not destined for a few minutes of quiet rest; a groan, a scraping noise, and a sudden bucking of the ground under his feet threw Carlos backwards into a newly-opened crack in the earth. As he fell he grabbed at the edge, catching himself -- but barely. Carlos glanced down at the yawning blackness below him, and back up to where his fingertips were barely clinging to the lip of the chasm, and realized that without help, he couldn't pull himself back up.

Re: PARK | ANY TIME

[splendid_roman]

Generally speaking, noises like that one were something best off running away from, since they tended to mean something bad. However, it was either a chance to help someone (who also might owe him a favour later) or put them out of their misery, thus getting him off the capitol's hit list.

When he ran over he couldn't see anything, except for the crack that hadn't been there earlier. He slowed and approached it cautiously. When he spotted fingers on the edge of it he called out, "Hold on!" as if the person was likely to do anything else, and lay on his front to slide closer.

As he reached down he found it was Carlos and grabbed one of his wrists. "Are you all right?"

[youbarium]

Carlos had nearly given up hope; there were no footholds below him that he could use to climb, and he could almost hear the tick tick tick of rapidly-passing time until his numbing fingers finally slipped and the darkness took him.

But he could actually hear Ian's shout. Carlos's eyes widened behind the glasses that had miraculously remained in place, and he stared up at the welcome face of Ian Chesterton.

"Currently, no," quipped Carlos. "But there is a high probability that I will be significantly more all right once I'm back on solid ground." If Ian was willing to help, and Carlos was reasonably certain that he was, the two of them could pull one scientist back onto the surface, undamaged except for sore fingers and a little dirt on his clothes and lab coat.

[splendid_roman]

He smiled at the quip. He could appreciate someone who kept their humour, even in tight situations. "As long as no bones are broken, you'll be fine."

Sure he had a good grip on Carlos, he held on to the edge of the crack with the other hand. "I'm going to try and pull you up." He hoped Carlos would be able to help and more so that he wouldn't pull Ian over the edge, accidentally or otherwise.

He tried pulling steadily, pushing against the ground and scrabbling backwards.

LAKE | ANY TIME

[youbarium]

"No, no, this can't be happening!" Of course Carlos knew perfectly well that it certainly could, and definitely was, but that seemed to be the appropriate thing to say when a noxious green cloud rolls our of the mist around you.

Carlos did not know what contact with the cloud would do to him, but he didn't stick around to test it. That was one experiment he could perform another day. For once, Carlos turned down the chance to perform science, and ran. He didn't know where he was going, only that he was running away from the gas cloud, and that was good enough for him. The Gamemakers knew, however, and before Carlos knew it, he had splashed into cold, clammy water that came up to his shins -- a lake.

Of course, Carlos didn't trust it; the cloud had all but chased him here, and it seemed remarkably unlikely that the lake would be his salvation from the gas. He hesitated for a moment in the lake's shallows, glancing from the gas to the murky water and back. Neither one was certain death, no; both were uncertain death. Very likely death, he knew, it was just that Carlos was uncertain of the means. However, it seemed to Carlos that he stood more of a chance in the lake, so he pulled a deep breath and dove in.

As soon as he was submerged, the cloud of gas (which had been quite small and localized, only about twenty square feet all told) dissipated, having served its purpose. Any onlooker close enough to see or hear would witness the ripples from Carlos's entry into the lake disappear. The surface grew calm, for a few seconds -- then began to roil and splash as a violent struggle began below.

[aboveangrybees]

The water of the lake was, well, questionable. Steve wasn't sure even boiling it would help, but it could be worth the try, water was harder to come by than food around here, he wasn't about to ignore the opportunity.

But the commotion near by catches his attention, looking over to see a man flee from something into the lake. It set Steve on high alert, looking around for whatever had chased the man, but came to find nothing more than the remains of a fading green cloud. There was no time to think about it though as the lake's surface erupted into violence, throwing Steve into action. Leaving his trash lid on the shore, Steve ran into the water and dove after the man.

And let it be known, Steve was fully aware of how dumb this was, he just wasn't the type to care.

First thing he found under there - other than flailing limbs - was the scaly body of a fish, a very large, thrashing fish, so he punched it. And again for good measure. He didn't have much leverage, but he used what he did have to try and push the man up to the surface for air, figuring the man may not have had the frame of mind to hold it when attacked.

[youbarium]

Carlos did not know he was being rescued. He couldn't see a thing in the water, and to be honest, he assumed Steve was just another fish (a fish with a terrifying capacity for grasping) come to get him. Carlos lashed out at the fish and lashed out at Steve, but the moment he felt the fish's grip on his leg loosen, Carlos kicked out against anything he could push against, pushing himself away from the fight and to the surface.

He scrambled up onto the shore on his hands and knees as fast as he could, coughing up lake water and gasping. His clothes were soaked through and his lab coat (pilfered from the pharmacy) clung to his limbs.

It would take him a minute to recover; until he was breathing normally again, Carlos wouldn't think to look back at the lake.

AMUSEMENT PARK | HELL WEEK

[youbarium]

All the ingenious but nonlethal traps in the world couldn't protect Carlos from monsters, a fact that Carlos appreciated very keenly as he dashed madly through the amusement-park area of the Arena. Around him, decrepit booths and the ghostly skeletons of rides rose around him like specters as he tried not to listen to the sounds coming from behind him, which echoed oddly in the old fair ground.

Carlos could hear the baying of dogs, honing in on what they knew was a lone Tribute. He could also hear the buzzing of Goddard knew how many insects, and underneath it all, he thought he could detect the quiet swishswishswish that running walkers made.

But he didn't look back. That was a rookie mistake. Carlos had survived for one year in Night Vale; he had survived pterodactyl attacks, swarms of three-foot venomous snakes, Valentine's Day, tarantula gang violence, and horror of horrors, street cleaning day. Actually, thought Carlos as he ran, this bore a remarkable resemblance to street cleaning day in Night Vale in most respects. Scorching heat? Check. Motion- and heat-seeking monsters actively out for blood? Check. Disintegrating buildings? Check. Carlos had seen it all before, one year ago.

Loath as Carlos was to admit it, though, knowledge could only get him so far in this situation. What he needed was a place to hide -- or someone to help.

[futilecycle]

No more than two weeks in and the old man was already ravaged by the Arena. There were thick, black bags under Sigma's eyes from lack of sleep, the roots of his hair had taken on a white sheen since his breakdown two weeks ago, and all bone but those in his arms could nearly be seen through starved skin. His clothes stuck to him, the sweltering heat burned holes around his eyesocket where his metal eyepiece sat, but without it, the Doctor could barely see. It stayed on, and the burn grew worse.

Completely exhausted, only the basest of survival instincts kept the Doctor moving, and the memory that the Capitol held an innocent woman in their merciless grasp. Before he died, Sigma knew he had to make a kill or it would be the end of her. It completely revolted him, but he needed to sacrifice one person for his plan to work. Just one...

And then, through the fog, Sigma hears the barking of dogs and knows there must be a Tribute nearby. Bracing himself for an encounter, Sigma hides behind what remained of a snack cart and waits for the sound of human steps. The Tribute's feet are heavy on the ground in a sprint and Sigma estimates they come from an adult male. If he were correct, it meant one thing: the dogs would perhaps leave them alone if there were two competitors working together. That said nothing for the other monsters that were sure to follow, but he'd cross that bridge when they got there...

Sigma curses his compassionate nature. He was supposed to be planning his kill, not helping a stranger. But the cyborg realizes with a start that he wouldn't even have to kill him. He'd just have to incapacitate the man and leave him behind to be eaten, and make his escape while the creatures satisfied themselves...

Grit teeth, face in his hands, Sigma steels himself to do what he hates most. He leaps from his poor hiding place and joins the other man in a dash...

And balks.

"Wait-!"

Sigma calls to the Tribute and stops in the path of the dogs. Now that the fog is cleared he can see them hesitate: Sigma is six feet of muscle (and steel, though they cannot know), but he is old and weak. It is a gamble. When they continue forward, Sigma is ready for them - he withdraws the brick he had been carrying and, taking aim with his eyepiece, lobs it with all the force his cybernetic enhancements can muster in his fatigue. It hits the mark and one of the dog's skulls caves in from the force.

It was certainly a start. Now Sigma just needed the man not to run off on him, and perhaps they stood a chance...

[youbarium]

"No, don't--" Carlos protests, as he sees Sigma step in. He skids to a halt, lab coat whipping around his knees. "Don't do that, you'll only get yourself killed too -- they're after me, they won't follow you if you leave--" His tone was tired, longsuffering, almost fussing -- as though Sigma were just stirring up an ant's nest unwisely. Carlos had nearly fallen (and actually fallen) into so many traps and encountered so many muttations over the past several days that really he could barely muster up the energy to be horrified.

Re: AMUSEMENT PARK | HELL WEEK

[bindsthedead]

"Anet! Calew! Ferhan!" The spell could almost be mistaken for throwing knives- except the spell-conjured silver blades went far faster, and with far more force, than an ordinary human could muster.

Three walkers fell, with bloody, fist-sized holes through their heads, and a wave of golden fire scared away the dogs and those insects that weren't incinerated along with the remains of one of the booths.

Sabriel drew in a breath, already reaching back into the Charteras she raised her crowbar.

"Who's there!"

[youbarium]

Carlos saw the blades, and the fire, and began to back slowly away from the young woman. His lab coat was dirty and torn, his glasses were askew, and his hands were in the air in a gesture of surrender. He knew that running would likely get him killed, since she'd just proven how deadly her ranged attacks were, so his best hope of survival lay in talking.

"I don't know how you did that," he admitted, "but please don't do it to me. I mean you no harm, and even if I did, nothing I have even approaches the effectiveness of whatever it was you just used on the muttations."

[allbloodyhail]

Spike was still in something that resembled shock after Topher had fallen to his death -- and the chip hadn't fired. Did that mean if he accidentally hurt someone it didn't register? Or that it didn't work at all here in Panem? He would've played this whole thing differently if he'd known from the start, but it was too late to go back now.

But even without the chip he was way more interested in monster-hunting than human-hunting, a fact he wasn't about to analyze too hard. He just needed time to process, that was all. "Look left!" he warned Carlos, whirring by him to tackle a beast to the ground. Why had he done that? He was supposed to let the humans pick themselves off and yet here he was. At least his poor judgment stayed constant no matter which dimension he happened to be in.

His face shifted as he gave himself over to the demon, ridges appearing where there were none, eyes turning over blue through green and glowing finally gold to stay -- and of course, the fangs descended, his transformation complete. Spike dug himself in to the monster and lost himself completely to the fight, forgetting about the chip and Carlos and Topher and allowing himself to enjoy the violence of it.

[youbarium]

Carlos didn't question the order, throwing himself to the side as Spike shot by. He tripped over an old rotten piece of plywood on the ground and hit the dirt shoulder-first, skidding a few feet and getting his lab coat thoroughly filthy. He went to scramble to his feet but was distracted by the sight of the battle in front of him. Good Goddard, what was that man?

Well aware that he should take the opportunity to flee, Carlos nonetheless hesitated. Perhaps it was Spike's willingness to fight monsters that gave Carlos pause; any Tribute with any sense for the Games would have gone for Carlos directly, or at least left the monsters to their own devices, so this might be a chance to make a temporary ally.

Or, perhaps, it was Spike himself's unusual, inhuman nature that made Carlos stay. Perhaps it was curiosity, curiosity that not even the Arena and its horrors could fully stifle. Carlos wanted to know. Carlos always wanted to know.

So, he picked himself up out of the dirt and backed to a safe distance away, still fighting with himself over whether or not to leave.

[letthemburn]

Iskierka has never really like the idea of teaming up with other people. But although she can tolerate the rising heat well enough, even she has to admit that there are a lot more things lurking in the shadows that even she can deal with. She has her flames back, at least, and she's already left more than a few unnameable things scorched in her wake.

But it can't last forever, and in the end she too is forced into the amusement park, and it's not anywhere she can say she's comfortable. True, there might be things to be made use of in the skeletons of things that had once been things that she can't even put names to.

But she pays them no mind as she keeps moving. There's no time to stop now, and if she happens to look like a monster to anyone else who might be hurrying through, she figures she can deal with that if it happens to come up.

[youbarium]

Carlos knows that there's a dragon tribute. Carlos also knows that dragons are definitely real -- certainly real enough for tax laws to apply to them. However, he also knows that the Capitol has created dragon mutations before, and when he rounds the corner of a rotting ring-toss booth and finds himself face-to-face with one, he immediately pulls out a small canister and holds it out in front of him, quickly backing away.

"Stay back," he warns -- although he knows he's not likely to intimidate Iskierka, he's going to bluff. "I don't want to have to use this."

If she responds, she's a Tribute, and can be reasoned with. If she doesn't, he'll use the bug-spray and hope enough of it goes in her eyes to let him run away.

(Distracted as he is by the red dragon, Carlos doesn't notice two Walkers approaching from behind him.)

[helpmeguideit]

The moment things went downhill in the arena, he noticed. His telepathy hit him like a ton of bricks. The fear, the regret, the danger - all there. He felt sick. He could see why having this ability in the arena would be both a curse and a blessing. The empathy causes him understand the feeling of death around him more intimately than he had ever wanted. Once those first few moments passed, he compartmentalized everything like he once did. No need to reveal on camera that he hesitated those first few moments everything came back.

There was someone, though, that stood out. Someone broken. Someone that needed help. He reached out to him.

Come towards my voice, he sent. He was ducking, hiding, moving, but the fact that he could hear things - feel things - made him all the more effective at hiding from them.

[youbarium]

It was a testament to how comparatively normal the last six months had been that Carlos was actually startled to hear an unfamiliar voice in his head. He looked around, casting glances at his surroundings through his cracked glasses, and nope, Carlos was definitely still alone as he crept behind the husk of an old ticket booth.

Carlos didn't rule out telepathy, of course; people had had supernatural abilities returned to them with the dispersion of the fog. However, Carlos also did not rule out heat-exhaustion and sleep-deprivation induced auditory hallucinations, which seemed about as likely right now.

Charles would read all of this in Carlos's mind: the recognition of telepathy as something that was possible, the skepticism, the caution -- the exhaustion that was turning a usually well-ordered mind into a tired mess. There was also a pang of nervousness: if this did turn out to be a hallucination, it would put Carlos at risk and he wouldn't be able to trust his own senses. On the other hand, if it didn't...it was entirely possible a psychic Tribute was luring him into a trap. Until Carlos determined what exactly was happening in his own mind, he would be staying right where he was.

CLOSED TO DAVE: POST HELL ARENA

[youbarium]

In the coolness the monsters were slower, but that didn't mean they wouldn't be active at all. Carlos was still cautious when he entered any area, and this house was no exception. Behind his cracked glasses, Carlos's eyes were everywhere at once: looking for rotting wood on the floor, looking for spiders on the ceiling, hyperalert to any one of the numerous dangers he had had firsthand experience with this Arena.

He was searching the house for supplies. Carlos had no illusions that there would be supplies that hadn't been claimed yet, but there was a chance someone had been killed by spiders, leaving their supplies behind. He crept up the stairs, quietly checking rooms, his can of bug venom out and ready to use against anything or anyone who startled him. At this point, Carlos wasn't taking chances.

Re: CLOSED TO DAVE: POST HELL ARENA

[shenunigans]

There's both relief and sadness in the eventual end of the hellish period of whateverthefuckthatwas. Dave is glad to know the heat is over and he's glad to see that the walls of buildings are no longer peeling away like it's some popculture reference he may or may not understand. Yet, he's kind of lamenting the loss of the ice shack. For a brief time, he'd felt pretty safe. He didn't have quite so many powers as Elsa, but they made a good team. Now the shack is a little too dangerous to hang around in, pieces of it are falling and collapsing as it slowly melts without the constant flow of magic.

With their previous shelter a slow moving water fountain, Dave and Elsa and taken to another house with their supplies. Dave gives Elsa the chance to rest first, taking his turn to stand guard around the house. He hadn't heard Carlos enter the house, but he'd heard him creep up the stairs, and Dave ain't having none of that shit when he's meant to be protecting his friend.

He may not be able to flash step, but he still has stealth on his side, he creeps after the figure in the dark with a bedpost weapon raised and at the ready. "Hey asshole." He announces, his voice just barely cracking. "Pools closed." He grips his weapon tighter, but he gives Carlos a chance to explain himself, not even considering the fact that sneaking up on him in the dark might NOT be such a good idea.

[youbarium]

After all he's been through, Carlos's reaction is automatic. It's not that he no longer believes in scientific pacifism, or that he even intends to kill whoever's speaking.

It's just that he's jumpy, and expecting spiders.

Carlos whips around, his torn and truly filthy lab coat flying out behind him, and sprays a mist of toxic but survivable bug-venom in the direction of the voice. Fortunately, as long as it isn't ingested and is wiped off the skin quickly, there will be no real ill effects; Carlos would not have used it as freely if it had been deadly.

It is fortunate that the spider-acid he had been using during the Hell Arena had proven impossible to carry around for more than a day or two, since it had eaten through its container.