thearena | ARENA 11-PaneMall

ARENA 11-PaneMall

It’s pre-dawn when the Tributes are roused from their beds and sent to their tubes. Those who’d been imprisoned for the past few weeks had their heads covered before transport to the staging area, and there’s an air of confusion surrounding just about everything that’s happening until the stylists and managers arrive on the scene and try to calm everyone down. The reunions may be happy, but they're sadly very temporary.

The first clue that something strange is happening comes from their clothing: figure skating costumes with bright colors and sequins and ice skates strapped to their feet. Some may even find it difficult to stand with the blades on their feet, but as they're placed into the arena, all becomes clear. The mall skating rink seems quiet and quaint, especially after weeks of uncertainty and stress. Too bad the peace and quiet can’t last.

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19

18...

Above the ice rink (which houses all 100+ Tributes) there are floors with shops looking over them. Large, bright fluorescent lights dot the multi-storied ceiling and create a warm, nostalgic glow to the place. Benign music is piped in from various hidden speakers to compliment the intended mood of fun and commerce.

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16

15…

The countdown continues and the Tributes, some of whom haven’t seen each other in weeks, stare at one another helplessly. That is, until one of them boldly decides to speak.

"We're expected to fight here today," Steve's voice suddenly cuts through the tension in the room. It commands attention without demanding it, a conviction of truth in his tone.

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12...

"To turn on each other through fear and self preservation. And we could give them what they want. A bloodbath," here he pauses longer, lets the reality of his statements sink in. Let people realize what he's saying, that this is a choice.

"Or we can choose not to fight. To instead work together," an option so many seem not to even realize they have. "No one here has to die by our hands today," he knows his speaking won't be without consequence, but he does want to believe he'll be the only one to pay for this.

"This is a risk. One many of you are hesitant to trust, let alone take. But everything we do here is a risk to ourselves and those around us," nothing in the arena comes without putting your life on the line.

"I, for one, am willing to take this risk, to choose not to fight," Steve looks around the room, making eye contact with a few people as he does. He's not telling anyone what to do, this is for them to decides for themselves; their freedom of choice.

But he's got faith in the his fellow tributes. "And I've got a feeling I'm not alone.”

… 3

2

1…

After the countdown ends, there’s a moment of utter still and silence. Then...

BOOOOOOOOOOOM

The room seems to erupt with noise and concussive force. The explosions are so violent that the muzak is paused in its tracks and shakes some of the Tributes off of their pedestals, and after the ice fog and smoke clears, it becomes apparent that fifteen of the Tribute pedestals and exploded there on the ice rink. Fifteen corpses lie mangled on the bloody ice: Deanna Winchester, Danny Fenton, Fili, Kili, Kain Highwind, Perry Kelvin, Julian Bashir, Clint Barton, Karkat Vantas, Sirius Black, Rahm Kota, Cinderella, Bunnymund, Robin, Rock Lee, and Rokk Krin.

The center of the ice rink remains completely intact and stocked with a few dozen keys of varying shapes and sizes. This is the Cornucopia and the Gamemakers are compelling the Tributes to skate for it.

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

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It's a few hours later, just a few, and Dave is already emotionally and physically done with this shit. He didn't exactly come into the Arena in fighting form, but to watch Karkat explode and to be dogpiled by so many people before only to go on to be screamed at and blamed for the death of a guy you barely knew had really done a number on him. He almost wants to find a crevice to sleep in and hope that he makes it out somehow.

Rather than that, he chooses to focus on what he can do right now. He let himself get separated after he left Eponine, but he can't bring it in him to go back and look for Bro or Rose at this point. In idle thoughts he remembers the guy he bumped into before Prison, the one he said he'd help out, and that gives him a clear goal of what he can do. It'd be pretty fucking helpful to touch base with him, since he made him his obligation, maybe he'll have back up when Eridan decides to come for him.

He has vague memories of seeing him helped off the ice a while ago, though he isn't quite sure of where he went, so he just heads in the direction he last recalls seeing him walk.

"Any nerds around here?" He calls out, glancing around as he follows it up with something more specific. "Hey, Tholluxth? S-o-l-l-u-x." He lets that hang for a moment before relenting. "Solluuuux?"

Well, at least one troll hears Dave, but not the troll he was looking for. Someone's trying to find Sollux, and she doesn't recognize that voice at all. So far, she hasn't seen a whole lot happen-- besides some people exploding-- but she's still on her toes.

Waiting around the corner, she peers around it, doing her best to keep her horns from interfering. They do make subtlety a little difficult. She waits to see which way he takes, and as soon as he gets close enough (a little too close for comfort) she steps out from her hiding spot.

"Who are you, and why are you looking for Sollux?" With her fins flared out, and her brow furrowed, she looks equal parts silly and serious. The feathered costume and lack of a weapon aren't really helping her, either.

At this point, Dave is realising he might have missed some more new arrivals, but his eyes hadn't landed on Feferi in the rink. Other things had taken his attention, you know how it is.

He doesn't expect he can walk through an Arena yelling without garnering some attention, but he's starting to realise more and more that he doesn't want to be alone right now. Sollux, for all his prickles, is actually pretty good company.

As such, he isn't too surprised when someone springs out at him, though it does earn her a surprised look and a step back. Fins. But not Eridan. Seems kind of aggressive, looks kind of like Meenah. Meenah is cool, Eridan isn't. Where does this one fall on the scale?

"I am Frodo Baggins of the Shire and I want to take the ring to Sollux so we can leg it to Mordor." He shrugs, looking far too tired to really take on a defensive stance. "We're district mates. I said I'd help his sorry ass."

"Sollux did not mention any Frodo Baggins." She advances, trying to puff up and look big. It's not working; she's too short to really look menacing. Maybe the bared fangs will help her case, because sharp pointy fangs don't typically look friendly. "If you want to help him by murdering him, I am not going to let you."

She did come ready for a fight, and if she has to, she will. She might be unarmed, but he looks like he is too, and she always has the advantage of being a troll.

"He didn't?" He forces himself to look crestfallen, which isn't particularly hard, oddly enough. "Man, I thought we had something special." He scuffs the ground with his barefoot, pouting at his toes before looking up at her to see the fangs are out.

"Calm down, princess." He assumes she's princess if Eridan and Meenah are also princesses. He holds his hands up in surrender, just so she doesn't get any more of those aggressive thinky thoughts. "He doesn't need my help getting murdered. He's more brittle than stale ramen. Guy could probably shatter a hip and some ribs if he slipped on a banana peel in some hypothetical happenstance." Stop making yourself sound suspicious.

"He is not!" Okay, so he is a little on the physically weaker side, but she's planning on fixing that. She just didn't have a whole lot of time to do it after her arrival. That, and it sounds like a thinly-veiled threat. The more he stands there, the more ready to attack she is, muscles tensing in preparation to leap. "You go back the way you came and don't come looking for Sollux again."

Dave thins his eyes at her defensiveness before giving her a flat and skeptical look, because he's sure she means well, but c'mon. He can see she's getting riled up. What kind of cologne did Oceana spritz on him before he left? People are getting in his grill left and right.

This is starting to get concerning, so he takes on a slightly more defensive stance, but he isn't in the mood to back down. "I already told you I'm going to help him." He's feeling particularly done with shit right now, so excuse him while he acts ballsy enough to try strolling past Feferi like it ain't no thing. "I'm gonna help the shit out of him, just watch."

Edited 2014-08-19 15:22 (UTC)

"And I told you, he does not need your help!"

Not the best move. She takes it as an opportunity to make hers, reaching out to grab him by the shoulders and shove him back. If he can be stubborn, so can she, and a lot more forceful than she looks. She just doesn't trust him, and something in her gut tells her not to let him out of her sight.

Dave lets out a growl of frustration when she shoves him backward, stumbling but not falling. He's a little surprised at the force behind it, but not enough to trip.

"Yeah, he does." He insists, feeling his temper flare a little more than it generally would at a time like this. He moves to circle around Feferi with his hands raises in surrender. "Listen, Princess. I have other stops to make and this is a one way train. So why don't you lift those boom gates and lower those hackles because I have shit to deal with." And again, he's trying to move past her.

"Then go make your other stops, no one is touching Sollux."

This time, Feferi is nowhere near as gentle, stepping in front of him to block him bodily, and pushing harder, making as if to push him down. The flaring of her fins might be more comical if she wasn't baring her teeth and all but snarling at him. She looks ready to pounce, but what else can she do? She doesn't have a weapon, and she doesn't know where Sollux is, and while she's sure he can take care of himself... she can't risk it.

The push is a little too much for Dave. He's usually pretty chill, he can roll with punches like this. Really, any other day he'd just roll his eyes and walk away, but today he's just really damn tired of not getting his way.

The line I'll touch whatever I want crosses his mind, but he dismisses it as fucking creepy. Instead, he's going to try shoving her back, grimacing because he doesn't have any fangs to flash. It feels weird fighting over a guy who he's only spoken to a few times, but it's the principal of the thing.

Well, now it's serious. Feferi knew she'd have to fight people, but she didn't think it'd be like this. Somehow she imagined a lot more flare and drama, not what amounts to a catfight over who can go near her matesprit. But if that's how it has to be, then so be it-- she'll do anything to defend Sollux. She's so done with petty shoving though, and meets his movement to grapple with him. She's a lot stronger than she looks for being so tiny, but her feet are dry and can't get much traction on the tile floor, plus he's so much taller than her, making the better option to try and topple them both over to the floor, where she might stand a better chance at gaining the upper hand. She might be able to pin him down. If only she could force him to stand still, then she might be able to ram him with her horns, but she has her doubts that he'll just stand in place and just let her do that.

The plot is pretty much lost for Dave at this point. In a rational state of mind he'd be slapping himself, but it's no different from that little run in he had with Meenah. Right? Beyond this being pointless because they're clearly on the same side. His height doesn't help much when it comes to grappling, particularly because he's more lithe than he is bulky. He can swing swords, but arm wrestling is a no go. Not to mention the fact that bare feet on the ground don't make for sturdy supports and the fact that he's both tired and under fed from prison. His noodle resolve doesn't last long and his feet are slipping under him, so he'll try to kick Feferi's legs out from under her so he isn't the only one falling, not realizing it's part of Feferi's grand plan to get his ass to the ground.

Edited 2014-08-25 15:43 (UTC)

That ruins her pouncing plans straight away. Feferi goes down with him, and winces as her still bruised knees hit the ground. It doesn't hold her up for long, though. No bruise is going to stand between her and what she needs to do. It's all just instinct now, as she tries to get on top of him to pin him down. What she's going to do from there, she doesn't really know...

Dave's ass only has a few more falls left before he really bruises his tailbone. He lets out a grunt of pain, the delay long enough to give Feferi an advantage in getting on top of him. Times like this are when years of training for fights come in handy, years of useful skills memorized and filed away for a moment of truth.

Unfortunately, all Dave can really think to do at the moment is to shove a hand in her face to try shove her out of his personal space. He has no idea what she plans to do either, but hell if he's going to stop it from being awkward.

A hand in the face is not what she expected, so without really thinking too much, she backs up just enough to bite down on it. She doesn't even know why, but her sharp fangs pierce skin easily, and while she could probably take a few fingers off easily, the coppery taste of human blood surprising her enough to spit his hand out without doing any major damage. She's tasted blood before, goodness knows she's eaten her fair share of raw whale and seal, but humans just taste different than she expected. Not something she'd like to try again.

See, Dave, with all of the posturing she was doing flashing her fangs you probably could have realised that she was angling for a bite. Putting a hand in the face of someone with a lot of big, sharp teeth is rarely a good plan, but the bite surprises Dave nonetheless.

He inhales sharply as he realises what she's done, for a moment it doesn't hurt, he's so surprised he can't feel anything. Then, like a slap to the face, that sharp pain is going to hit him hard and fast. He lets out a yell before he can think to be subtle, skinny legs kicking as he searches for an outlet.

"AAAARGH. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK. Holy shit. OW." The swear is loud enough that it practically echoes through the mall. Practically. Almost. Sort of.

Sollux's journey has been, on the whole, ridiculous but simple. He got dragged across the ice by a stubborn but mute clown, puked, removed his skates, then fled. He found some human dressed up like a troll then nabbed some spare clothes and a bucket for carrying things from the store responsible. From there he fled down to the second floor, found the book shop, and hunkered down behind a bookshelf. He hasn't bothered so much as reading the titles; he's not here for literary merit, and he couldn't focus enough to read the contents if he tried.

Hearing Dave hasn't changed a thing. He heard him, yes. It was impossible to ignore the sounds of him calling out for him, much as it was back on their floor, but with the added tension of the situation at hand. He doubts Dave wants him dead, hopes he doesn't, and stubbornly refuses to move anyway. When another voice joined, that resolve only grew stronger.

The only thing is, what drifted in sounded too familiar. He heard his name more than once, heard something feminine, heard Feferi after he listened enough. And that made him worry. Feferi--she out of anyone is strong, can fight and survive, but the looming threat of death weighs no lighter on him. One of them will have to die eventually; he doesn't want to make it more painful by being there when it happens. They can fuss and argue all they want. It doesn't matter, it doesn't fucking matter, they can just--just go on their way--find something else to...

But he hears them scuffle, hears them hit the ground, and then--

Sollux tears out of the store as fast as his (unfortunately still bare) feet can carry him, skates jangling in the bucket he's dumped them in, breath hissing as he forces himself to a speed he's not used to.

"THTOP!" he yells as he runs the way he heard them. "Thtop, thtop, don't kill each other!"

There is a genuine fear in his voice, one that slips into the set of his eyes just as well as he finally spots them and jogs over. He must look strange: he managed a shirt with his symbol, the yellow a bit too bright, but his pants are the baggy, spotted look Gamzee would sooner be caught wearing. A pail hangs from one tight clenched hand, and hints of blood - dried, red blood - are visible just under the collar at his shoulder, and sticking in his hair.

Edited 2014-08-26 07:08 (UTC)

At least Feferi does stop when she hears Sollux's voice, and she sits up, turning to look at him approaching like a startled antlerbeast. At this point, if Dave were actually dangerous, she'd probably be dead, so it's a good thing he isn't. All her attention is focused on Sollux: the pants, the pail, the blood. Feferi's not sure which one she finds stranger but she doesn't really care. She's kneeling on the floor with blood on her lips, still wearing the strange, feathered thing she wound up in earlier. Her skates are still hanging around her neck, and it's probably better she didn't think to use them.

She shakes off the surprise just long enough to point an accusatory finger at Dave. "But he was going to come hurt you, so I was trying to stop him!"

If she was going to have to kill someone eventually, it might as well be whoever threatens Sollux or herself, right? That was a reasonable situation in which you might kill someone-- it would have been true even if they were still on Alternia.

For all of Sollux's immense shortcomings when it came to Arenas, it was undeniable that he was at least in possession of good timing. Something a glorious time-lord such as Dave can respect, mostly because he has no idea where this fight is going. The pain in his hand is remarkably distracting, but he's trying to stifle that thought for the moment and focus on something else. He doesn't want to look at how bad it is, but she wasn't clamped on for too long at the very least. It's gonna hurt like a bitch tomorrow, if he makes it to tomorrow.

He pulls his hand back to his chest protectively now that she's distracted. Shooting her a look when she gets accusatory again before turning his attention to Sollux, who looks almost as ridiculous as Dave feels. "Good morning, sunshine. Nice of you to finally join us." He says, not without some bitterness in his tone. "I already told you that I wasn't going to hurt him. I'm trying to HELP his sorry ass, holy shit." He just went about it in the worst way possible.

Sollux looks between them: at the blood on Feferi's mouth, at the bite at Dave's hand. He swallows thickly. He's not weak around blood on its own, but the circumstances, the not knowing of how far things might have gone if he didn't stop them, that revives the sick feeling in his stomach. It's probably for the better that he has nothing to empty it of now.

"He'th an inthufferable prick," he says, feeling less solid now that he's actually here, "but he'th the kind of idiot who tried to argue we're going to be betht friendth, and offered to teach me to uthe a thword, and showed me where to find the thermal hull back on our floor."

His gaze slips between them again. "I don't think--" It settles on Dave, and he bites his lip. He hopes. "He'th probably not going to kill me unlethh thomething fortheth it."

"Oh."

Feferi just gives Sollux the most bewildered look, eyes wide and fins tucked back, before she turns back to Dave and gives a little shrug. "Sorry I tried to kill you then."

She pushes herself up and manages to get back to her feet, albeit a little wobbly on her visibly bruised knees. It's not the worst damage she could get, certainly minor compared to the numerous small lacerations she left on his hand. She reaches out to give him a hand up. "Any frond of Sollux is a frond of mine!"

It's an almost flattering appraisal, just barely. Dave would be more pleased with it if he weren't verging on being pissy and irritable. "There's no probably about it." His tone is firm and he gives Feferi a bland look for the apology.

When she stands up, he just lets himself flop backward on the ground with the hand cradled still against his chest. He gives the ceiling a bitter look, as if he were hoping to look into a camera and reenact The Office.

"If you think I'm letting you at my good hand you're nuts." He points out, pushing himself up with the small amount of limberness he has left in him. Not without an unflattering grunt, of course. "Sorry I disappeared." He shoots at Sollux, not lingering on it long. He'll probably notice that he has a cuff on his wrist that wasn't there before as he turns to Feferi. "Welcome to Panem, Princess."

This is downright bizarre. Feferi just gives in and gets up like it's nothing - and okay, that's her, that's definitely her, but it feels so unreal when he just got dragged through blood earlier after seeing his best friend blown up. He reaches up to rub and pinch at the bridge of his nose. His shades he stubbornly left behind; he could have brought them as a token, but he didn't want to risk them being broken.

"I don't underthtand anything anymore." The hand shifts, rubs down his face, and drops. The cuff is hard to miss, and he doesn't ask about it.

"Her name'th Feferi."

Feferi won't be left hanging. While Dave's getting up, she reaches out to put her hand by his shoulder, just to help steady him if he needs it. He will be helped, whether he likes it or not. She's just a little stubborn like that.

"Yes, my name is Feferi. Do you buoys want time alone to play catch up?" She gives a teasing look between the two of them; surely they're just friends, like Sollux mentioned, but who is she to impede on Sollux's friendship making? "I need to go find something else to wear anyway!"

[closed to Feferi and Sollux]

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sneaks this in

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