She's become a little bit bolder.

[justoutrunyou]

Who: Sandy and Open to all
What: Gonna kill some people. She is anxious, nervous and violent. Feel free to approach.
Where: Food court and around the first floor of the mall
When: Week 2
Warnings: All the violence

Despite her better judgement...sometimes Sandy needed time alone. Even from Pruna.

The torture had made her jumpy. Twitchy and worse? Now she questioned everything. Even her best friend. Ever time Pruna fell silent she couldn't help wonder and worry about what was going on in her head.

She had tried to kill Sandy to save her...what if she tried it again?

Feeling her skin crawl Sandy sulked about the mall jumping at every little noise and keeping close to pillars and planters and signs to hide behind. She was making her way to the food court to hopefully smother her fears in fresh food. As luck would have it a platter of soft steaming pretzels and various sauces was on display and she helped herself to the entire thing, sitting down at a table with her back to the wall.

Despite her caution it became so easy to sink into the warm soft pretzels. Her weaponized barrier pole sat next to her seat as she let her fingers squish the fresh baked bread and rip it off into chunks. Each chunk was dipped in one of the brightly colored sauces and for a moment, she was smiling again.

She could forget where she was for just a moment and remember her life before all the fear.

Her father dipping a pretzel piece in cheese and passing it to her to chew on. She was still so young her feet couldn't reach the floor when she sat.

In this distracted state she was vulnerable. She knew it. But as her jaw ground the salty treat into pulp for at least this one moment the constant questions and fears in her mind were quiet.

Clearly someone should come along and ruin this.
 

Comments

For Alex and Brainiac

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy had found some paint in a supply closet.

Before her ordeal in Capitol custody she would have reveled in the possibility of being able to paint while in the arena. Now she had the canvas of the Mall to work with and she saw nothing.

The paint which used to flow from her fingers into shapes and memories now were just bland and drained colors.

With a sigh she picked up a can of black spray paint and pressed down on the dispenser letting the familiar hiss and scent of the pain wash over her while the color misted itself over a display window.

For lack of anything creative, for lack of anything meaningful she just wrote a simple word that summed up all of her confused feelings and emotions. All of her anxiety and fear into a single functional word.

"Fuck."

As she put the last stroke of black paint onto the k she stepped back wishing for a feeling of satisfaction and only finding a longing for more.

[yourmove]

Alex rounds the corner and finds a crime in progress: defacement of property. He notes that Ms. Marko is classified as a minor.. Therefore he needs to be less...prompt in his response unless she gives him reason to use the force reserved for an adult. It's why he doesn't stride forward and slam Sandy to the floor in an arm lock.

"Drop the spray paint, Ms. Marko," Alex says, pointing at the ground. Despite Jet trying to fix his face, there isn't much a first aid kit can do. One side of Alex's face has a blistered, wax-like quality to it, skin bubbling over his ruined artificial eye. "If you have any weapons or possession that can be used as weapons, I have to ask that you put them on the ground and step away."

He stands there blocking the way. She can always run the other way but Alex is larger, has the benefit of no muscles to feel muscle fatigue. For her good and the good of her parents, wherever they are, he prefers that she obeys him.

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy gave a startled yelp and fumbled the can in what would be a comical way if she wasn't already on the verge of terror.

What...what was this thing!? Another creation of the Capitol? It looked almost human but the burns were awful and that eye!

Gripping the can a little tighter as it was the first weapon she had she began inching for her pole. She could try to run, but she didn't dare abandon her weapon of choice in case he gave chase.

"Why do you care?" She asked in a quivering voice and then silently cursed herself for apparently losing the ability to sound like anything more then a frightened child.

[yourmove]

That's not cooperating. Alex advances on Ms. Marko, oblivious to the waver in her voice or the wide eyes.

"I don't condone vandalism. Put it down on the ground."

Alex repeats himself like a broken record. He's prepped to remind her one last time before he defaults to physical force: non-lethal incapacitation, as she's a minor. It doesn't mean much to Alex in his present state, only that any injuries she may incur will likely heal faster, more cleanly, than an adult. He doesn't care about the pole a few feet away. In her hands it will be a different call but until then, he only registers it as part of the scenario.

He continues to close in on her, his human hand out.

"Count of ten," Alex decides that seems more than fair. "Ten...nine..."

[justoutrunyou]

Adult countdowns. They used to hold so much threat to them.

But thanks to the countdown before every arena to Sandy they didn't hold much threat anymore.

Instead she sprayed the paint at him hoping it would slow him down while she made a dash for the pole she had left on the ground nearby. She wasn't planning on fighting...but if she couldn't run away she would.

Think this would be a good place for Brainy to jump in

[yourmove]

Unfortunately for Sandy, it felt short of hitting him in his face. A reticule outlined her retreating body in red, highlighted against his HUD.

[ SELECT APPROPRIATE FORCE: INCAPACITATE ]

Alex lunges at Sandy, moving faster than his scorched face and bulk would suggest. The cyborg goes from zero to enforce at all costs, his armored hand stretching toward her. At the very least he hopes to confiscate the spray paint. Examining Ms. Markos's resistance, it's likely he will have to incapacitate her. Perhaps breaking an arm will instruct her on how to be a law-abiding citizen.

this okay?

[googledox]

Brainy routinely watched the games and took in all publicly available information he could on his fellow Tributes to understand their backgrounds and who he was dealing with. And he'd seen and heard enough to figure out what was going on, especially with Dennett asking Lonestar for technology to check the man's programming for errors.

"Hey!"

A display of Christmas lights and garlands, cut loose from where they were attached to a pylon dropped over Alex. It would likely only briefly entangle him, given his strength, but it served as a momentary distraction.

That was why Brainy dropped down from the pylon, picked up his crowbar, and ran up and smashed a store front window near them with his crowbar to continue attracting Alex's attention.

"Vandalism."

He ran over to Sandy, pulling her closer to him and then briefly slapped her lightly upside the head, not really painfully, but just enough it could count as assault.

"Assault on a minor sentient."

He stood in between Alex and Sandy, crowbar held aloft.

"And interfering with an arrest. Perhaps you should re-evaluate your current priorities. After all, I'm a wanted criminal in multiple universes, galaxies, and planetary sectors, a repeat offender guilty of everything from assault to conspiracy to commit murder to fraud and money laundering."

wonderful~

[justoutrunyou]

It took Sandy a moment to catch on to what Brainy was doing, and when he did her eyes went wide with confusion.

"What the hell are you doing?!" She cried at him, her eyes darting back and forth between him and the robot man. It's not that she wasn't grateful but...wasn't this guy supposed to be some sort of self serving villain?

[yourmove]

Just like that, Brainiac 5 jumps Alex Murphy to criminal; skip verbal force, skip physical force.

He even skips incapacitation.

Alex immediately queues up lethal force, his face expressionless as his HUD targets Brainy in bright red, Sandy's own targeting reticule downgraded into yellow to deal with after he pacifies her assailant. Alex doesn't bother issuing a warning, telling Brainy to get down on the floor like he attempted to with Venus. His face is still that polite, detached blank, waxy and blistered from the fryer oil, as he charges Brainy. There are no wind up, no tells, no flicker in the eyes. One second he's standing there, studying them. The next he's sprinting at the Coluan, legs pistoning.

His graphene hand flashes out to grab Brainy, aiming for the neck. The neck is a good way to control a human and there's a probability it will do the same for a Coluan.

[googledox]

"Something ill-advised!" Brainy cried. "Now run!"

Shoving Sandy to the side, out of Alex's path, he ran forward towards him and parried and did a backbend at the last second under Alex's arm, turning around and to try and hook at Alex's foot with the crowbar from behind in an attempt to trip him.

Cyborgs and other artificial beings had ridiculously fast reflexes. That was what happened when you had a computer brains and a mechanical body. Brainy, despite his brain being organic, was just as fast. An organic computer of the right caliber could easily keep pace with a mechanical one - or outpace one on occasion.

The problem here was the mechanical body. If Sandy's attacker managed to lay a hand on him at all, only one solid hit could kill him, it would be difficult if not impossible to deal damage back, and he'd exhaust himself long before the cyborg would.

He was going to have to find a way to temporarily shut him down without revealing the full extend of his technological knowledge and with very few materials to work with.

Please feel free to carry on without me while Sandy watches and just ping me when needed.

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy didn't need telling twice. If Brainiac was going to risk his life maybe she didn't have to understand it when the killer robot man was right ontop of them.

She scrambled away hiding behind a trash can with enough distance between them that if Alex turned back to her she could run like hell.

[yourmove]

He blows past Sandy.

Alex's goal now is to pacify Brainy in the swiftest, least painful way possible - something that may not be possibly if Brainy continues to resist. It's always preferable if the criminal lies down, hands on their head, face to the floor. All Alex would need to do is reach down, calculate the force needed, and snap their neck. It's...difficult when your target is being less than cooperative.

Brainy pivots, moving much faster than Alex estimated he would at first. His HUD is furiously recalculating as the Coluan dips underneath his retracting arm, the crowbar hooking underneath his ankle. It doesn't send Alex pitching face first into the floor because he's just too heavy - what it does do is make him stumble a step, two steps forward. He's already turning as his stabilizers kick in, his head and then chest whirring toward Brainy.

He lunges again, coming at Brainy even as he's still half-turned, his hand reaching out to grab at a wrist, clothes - anything at all. It on't matter. He's positive once he has a hold, he can then limit mobility by breaking a few choice bones. After that, it should be easy to apply lethal force.

[googledox]

For just a moment Brainiac caught sight of a switch on the back of Alex's neck. Something possibly useful, but only if he could avoid getting grabbed which was doubtful at best.

He wasn't going to be able to dance around him forever. Brainiac took advantage of the brief moment of Alex turning and regaining momentum to look around the room to see what he could -

Ah!

Running towards Alex as if he was planning on attacking, he did a fake-out and then used his momentum to slide on the floor between his legs, quickly hopping to his feet on the other side.

The downed garlands had wires in them - Christmas lights, and he snagged them as he ran, tying them to the crowbar.

The rest was one extremely smooth motion. He threw the crowbar over Alex's head like a javelin, causing the garlands and wires to spread over him like a net, turned, took out his little makeshift tool as he ran, slid on his knees to the electrical outlet, jammed them where they needed to go, moving them so there was a little snap.

Then turned to see exactly how close Alex was when enough electricity surged through the Christmas lights to overload them and create breakdown voltage.

He suspected it was probably a foot or two away at this point, judging from his calculations.

For Dennett and Susannah

[justoutrunyou]

Christmas.

It seemed like just a few weeks ago she had been teaching Pruna the meaning of the holiday and now there was a Christmas village set up in the mall.

She'd used to love the Christmas set up at her mall. Sure it was loud but it felt somehow peaceful when it wasn't swarmed with children.

She approached this Santa house dragging a pole behind her and wondering idly if there was some kind of monster waiting for her on the inside of the cheerful little cottage. Perhaps a mutant reindeer or zombie elf.

hope this works?

[biomechatronic]

Christmas was a beautiful season, even once you outgrew the Santa and elves and reindeer. And it was bad enough to commercialize it in the mall, turn it into some corporatized, consumer holiday, but to bring that here?

Obscene. Really, that's the only word that fit.

And even more obscene that in this faux Winter Wonderland, Dennett's clutching the broken blade of an ice skate in front of him like a weapon. There's a small determination in his mind now: he doesn't want to kill, he can't bring himself to that, but he is not going to be a victim again.

There's a dragging noise to his left, and he crouches, right outside the gingerbread looking house, thinking he's completely hidden behind the artificial snowman.

Re: hope this works?

[dividedgirlofmine]

He isn't. Susannah doesn't recognize the older white man, but she figures he's a good a person as any to start her killing with. Even better, he doesn't seem to have seen her yet. She aims for his heart with her eye and--

What the hell was that?

It sounded like something was exploding halfway across the shopping mall. Whatever it was, it threw off Susannah's aim and her shot hit the white man's shoulder instead.

Damnit. She'd wanted this to be quick and easy on him.

work it bay be work it

[justoutrunyou]

Between the gunshot and the explosion Sandy let out a startled yelp and spun around swinging her pole so fast that it slipped from her hands and smashed clean through a plastic elf's head. the pole bounced on the floor rolling some feet away from the edge of the winter wonderland.

It was here she spotted Dennett, but she could not see the shooter just yet. Wide eyed and looking scared out of her wits for a moment Sandy froze.

[biomechatronic]

The ground bucked under him, and he lurched, swinging to grab the snowman for balance, moving faster than he would imagine, just a flail, really. And then he felt the hot shock in his shoulder, hard enough to spin him around with its force. He lost his balance, from the dual shock, landing with a wet grunt on the floor.

Dennett isn't an athlete, or a soldier. There's not a single tactical thought in his head. The only thought in his head, though, was I'm shot! I got shot!. Who would shoot him? And it hurt way more on the receiving end than he imagined from all those trauma calls he'd taken.

Still, fear has it's own, innate, animal cleverness and force, and Dennett finds himself on his feet, rolled up with reflexes he didn't even know he had, bolting away, trying not to think of the trial of blood he's leaving, when he sees the little girl. "Get down!" he yells. The least he could do is save her, right?

[dividedgirlofmine]

Oh Lord, that was one of those little Twelve girls, wasn't it? What the hell was she doing here? And what in the hell had set off the explosion before anyway and was it going to happen again soon? She only had so many bullets--she really didn't need to waste any by misaiming.

[justoutrunyou]

In this moment Sandy's anxiety got the best of her. It was as if there was a buzzing sound in her ears that drown out Dennett's words and all she could hear was her own screaming voice in her head.

You're unarmed. You're unarmed. YOU'RE UNARMED!

In a panic she started towards the pole that had slipped form her hands putting her on a direct path past Dennett. She was so focused on retrieving her weapons to stop the panic that she had barely noticed he was shot. She just wanted to dodge past him to get her pole.

Unfortunately for Sandy, the fake snow scattered around the display was slick on her running shoes and she pitched forward stumbling and slowing herself down.

[biomechatronic]

He staggers closer, huffing, because really, how unambiguous was 'get down'? Why does no one ever listen to him!?! His heart's pounding in his chest so hard--a combination of pain and adrenaline--that he doesn't know if he heard another shot or not. But he sees the girl fall, and presumes the worst, lunging at her, trying to catch her before she hits the ground. Maybe he can help her. Maybe her wound isn't as bad as his.

[dividedgirlofmine]

Susannah lowers her pistol, but doesn't put it away. She doesn't want to chance getting that little girl from Twelve too and she doesn't trust there not to be another explosion to throw off her aim.

She keeps watching, though. The little girl might leave, after all.

[justoutrunyou]

She's on the ground.

She's unarmed.

He's coming for her.

HE'S COMING FOR HER!

With a wild and desperate jerk of her head left and right she seized upon the first item within' arms reach. A decorative plastic candy cane about as thick around as a bat. With a cry she lunged forward snagging it and wrenching it out of the ground and twisting around to swing the hook end of it into his face. It was hallow so while it might smart and deflect him if it hits, it's not as sturdy a hit as a bat. It's more likely to shatter against his head.

I am so sorry for the delay ;-;

[biomechatronic]

Of course he's coming for her. He's trying to save her life from the crazed maniac who is shooting people!

"Please, you need to--" And the plastic cracks against his head, and he sees stars from his left eye. Really, this isn't his day. He grabs for the cane, out of reflex, pawing blindly in its direction.

as am i!

[dividedgirlofmine]

She's not a maniac, she's a sniper. There's a difference. One who's currently groaning quietly at the fray in front of her. Stupid. This was all so very, very stupid.