thearena | Arena 05

Arena 05 - Chill

Usually, the tribute's outfits for the arena aren't accessorized. But today, the last thing their stylists hand them before the countdown begins is a pair of heavy black glasses, polarized and thick-lensed. They look at odds with the thick, winter gear they've been outfitted in.

It's a long rise to the surface today, inside their individual little tubes, much longer than usual. They start to feel the cold only about halfway up, and to hear the wind. It howls across the surface as they reach it, pressing all of their clothes flat against their bodies. And the reason for the glasses is immediately apparent.

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The sky is white. The ground is white (and gray and black and blue but mostly white), the far-off sea is blinding silver. Everything in sight flings light around, fractures it into scintilating rainbows and sheer white beams of reflection. It is strong, cruel light, and it bears no heat at all. The surface is so cold that the little metal trackers ache in everyone's arm, and the countdown has to continue at a deafening volume to be heard.

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The circle of silver pedestals is the only regular shape to be seen. All else is fractured and split, the most uneven footing imaginable. And at the center of the circle, the Cornucopia sports icycles hanging from its lip, almost to the pile of supplies tucked all neatly inside its mouth.

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There's a lull in the wind just as the gong sounds, letting it peal out across the frozen glacier, and echo off the high rock cliffs in the distance. And the ice answers, with a loud crack that seems to come from miles down.

Let the Games begin.

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The pedestal and it's tube have been altered to accommodate her alien form, and so has the artificial skin that they've insisted she wear.

She's been given seven fingered gloves designed to fit her more delicate andalite hands. The parka itself starts out normal enough, though she needs to close her stalk eyes and tuck them down in order to keep the hood from damaging them. Losing their added 360 degree vision is enough to put her on the verge of a panic attack.

As the parka reaches her lower body, it continues along the top and bottom with additional 'sleeves' for her legs and one that encompasses the majority of her tail, leaving the blade free.

In short, she looks utterly ridiculous.

She hears the howling of the wind and feels the cold breath as her pedestal rises and looks up. Why would it be so cold?

She's given her answer when her pedestal meets the surface, stinging flecks of icy snow whipped up into her face, her main eyes protected only by the thick, black glasses she's been given.

They've been dropped on an uninhabitable planet!

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Panic seizes her as she realizes that removing her hood to look around would mean damaging her stalk eyes in the unforgiving weather. She turns her head and her body, remaining on the pedestal as ordered, in an attempt to view her opponents, but they are all unrecognizably the same in their thick, protective artificial skins.

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Turning back to the Cornucopia, she dismisses it immediately. It's full of primitive human weaponry she has no use for. Though she has no idea what's in the bags or cans, she doubts it will be of any use to her either.

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As the gong sounds, she attempts to fly off of her pedestal in the opposite direction from the Cornucopia, hoping to find cover somewhere where she can collect her thoughts. It seems as if everything happens in slow motion as her hooves simply fly out from beneath her. <Ah!>

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

She saw the strangely shaped creature flail out in front off her, far too late to be able to stop. She tried, desperately, but being her own first time in ice, she got to experience for the first the way everything kept moving, even when she wasn't.

"No!" She squealed, arms windmilling for balance.

Legs splayed out comically across the ice, the woefully out of place andalite slides right into an off balance Lottie.

Her goal was to get away from the other tributes!

Lottie collapsed on top of her, wiggling and bucking to avoid breaking anything more delicate then herself. She slid off, and a few inches more, staring up at the white sky for a moment.

Before remembering it wasn't really a time to stop and catch your breath.

"I'm sorry." She blurted, hoping manners would help, as she squirmed to get on to her stomach, and then up on her feet.

Adel's tail had twitched in preparation to defend, but it seemed the small human was about as troubled as she. The apology made her relax a little further, though she wasn't about to let her guard down entirely.

<Likewise.> She replies, trying to turn her head and look up at the human. Unable to turn her head far enough (and missing her stalk eyes terribly), she begins to work on getting her own hooves beneath her again.

Clearly she wouldn't be doing much running on this terrain. Her hooves were simply not built for it.

Back on her own knees, Lottie was about to bolt towards Some again, before she realized...she couldn't. She couldn't just walk away from this...girl?

"Here, let me help you up..."

If she got under her, and pushed up, she could do it.

He saw them go down, his friend and the new grue it had to be a grue, his heart dropping hard into his stomach, but he couldn't force himself to move. Not a single step.

"Lottie!" he cried out, in a choked, weak voice, not wanting to anger the ice.

Her pride insists she decline such a humiliating offer, but she is having a rather difficult time getting back up and staying there surely meant death. With Lottie's support, she is able to get her hooves beneath her again without slipping. <Thank you.>

The sound of Some's cry, nearly drowned out by the wind, has her turn, carefully, towards it's source. Artificial skins or not, it was easy to separate this particular tribute from most of the others. For one, they were the only other tribute she'd seen whose evolutionary path was sensible enough to grant them four legs.

"I need to get to him." Lottie said, looking towards Some, and the glancing back at Adel.

There was, obviously, some simularties between the two. And right now she couldn't see any of her other normal allies...and she wasn't sure she could get Some moving on her own.

"Will you help me?"

Adel hesitates. This wasn't going according to her plans. At all. There could only be one winner to this 'game', she knew. But she also sees now how a temporary alliance could be of great benefit.

<Yes, I will help you get your friend. We must be careful, we are still near the supplies the other tributes are fighting over.> Someone could come in their direction at any time. Armed.

He tried. He really tried to take a step, but he felt frozen to the pedestal, and could only crouch lower on it, wrapping his arms around himself.

"Lottie, get off the ice!"

"I'm coming to get you Some!" She called back, before offering her hand to Adel. The other didn't seem very sure on the ice at all.

Then again, neither would Some me, she didn't think.

The andalite looks at Lottie's outstretched hand but doesn't take it. <I will fine.> She says, before starting towards Some herself. She selects her steps carefully, trying to keep to areas where snow has covered ice.

By the time they're close, he's keening in his throat, long, low sounds of despair. His teeth are bared with every breath, tears frozen in the black fur of his face.

"It's Ice!" he groaned, using not the English word, but the Grue one, a grinding of teeth combined with a painful-sounding grunt. "It's going to kill us all!"

"Baby doll, if you don't move off there now, something else is sure going to."

Making it to his pedestal finally, she held up her arms, glancing back to make sure Adel was with them. She had a feeling they might have to force him.

Adel is taken aback by the flash of sharp, carnivorous teeth, hesitating behind Lottie. ...Two mouths? One was bad enough, what ever could a creature need with two? But Some appeared to be sapient, if his use of language was any evidence. And he seemed more terrified than aggressive.

<The substance around and beneath us is simply water that has reached it's freezing point. It can bring us no harm.> She explains carefully. Admittedly, she herself has never seen so much of it. The andalite homeworld is never cold enough to produce snow or ice.

"I'd rather die here! It will eat-" He jerked and grabbed Lottie's arm, stopping to stare at Adel. Not a grue then. Who would be so cruel as to make a creature without a mouth?

"Ice doesn't eat you now come on, you are making this lady loss her patient my friend."

Reaching up, she tried to grab one of his arm. Maybe she and Adel could just drag him out, with as slick as this ice was. She glanced back at her new partner in crime.

"I think we might need to force him, before someone notices our predicament."

She was going to die, and it would be her own kindness that brought about her death. She was such a fool! But how could she abandon them now, when she had already promised to help?

<Yes, we are very close to the Cornucopia.> She says sharply, as if to remind Some that he is putting all of them in danger. She attempts to take hold of another of the grue's arms, her hearts thudding in her chest at the thought that he might bite her in fear.

Some keened in his throat, holding onto both of them even as they grabbed him. He had no idea who the not-grue was, and didn't care. All he cared about was that they were on the back of an angry god and hadn't they heard it? When they pulled, though, he didn't resist, only clenched two of his eyes shut as he stumbled with them.

"Oh thank the Lord Jesus." She said, tugging him forward with Adel's help.

Now to get them somewhere safe. The whole place was white, as far as she could see. She was incredibly thankful the sunglasses as she scanned the distance, seeing a ravine ahead of them.

"This way!"

Testing her steps, Adel helps Lottie guide Some towards the ravine. It's a miracle that no one has killed them yet. The andalite does her best to look around, seeking out anything green in the vast span of blinding white. Her hearts sink when the only grass visible is on the cliffs on the other side of a deep crevasse. This does not bode well for her.

Between them, Some did his best not to stumble, stifling the scream he could feel building in his throat when he saw where Lottie was guiding them. His crest was erect and stiff under the hat he wore, and he felt stiff, and knew it was the fear. They would go in that ravine and it would close - and maybe they would wake up back in the Capitol, but he doubted it. With his soul he doubted it.

"H-how did they put us here?" he begged, almost in a moan.

"The same way they put us everywhere, darling."

She knew he didn't like snow, and ice, but she had no idea it went to this level. Still, she was keeping her eye on the prize. Which was, hopefully, not dying.

Adel stops at the edge of the ravine, staring down the steep slope of snow covered ice she's expected to make her way down. <Perhaps I should go first...> She suggests. Lest she crush anyone.

This was not going to be pretty.

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