Mini Arena 3

[etcircenses]

The kids are picked up from the daycare bright and early, but by the Capitol instead of their parents. It's just like old times in the arenas, with only children to contend.

25 - 24 - 23

Stylists are starting to get used to the mini-arenas, though it doesn't mean they've been allowed to dress tributes in whatever they want. All the tributes will be dressed as proxy copy of a respective video game character. All tributes are reminded about the ticket rules for this round.

20 - 19 - 18 - 17 - 16

The platforms lift them up, and there is no cornucopia to be seen. The only way tributes will be able to help and protect themselves is if they go out of their way to harm another tribute and get the tickets, which will be tallied by their watches. The lights of the games flicker and glow within the dark. Classic video game fight tunes play overhead. Before them lay a great and stretching obstacle course, filled with animatronic enemies and various other hazards.

11- 10 - 9 - 8

They've all been warned, don't step off your pedestal early. They have also been warned to put on a good show. That's all this is about, a good show. None of them have been told that there can be multiple winners this time around.

5 - 4

3

2

The sound of the gong plays crystal clear across the opening. The games have begun.

[OOC: Remember, this is forwardated by a week.]

Comments

[a_minute_younger]

He's about to, but not after giving Terezi some time to wait. For all of his natural speed and agility and general stubbornness in the face of physical duress, Gary is starting to fall behind at this point. Cuts and bruises, so many that they're starting to mesh together into some endless red-purple string over his exposed skin, stall his movements and stiffen his already burning joints. He is not used to this. The rush--the adrenaline rush, the one he grew up with and has come to expect--should have kicked in a long time ago to mask the pain and keep him moving forward. It has not and Gary is definitely suffering for it.

All of this said, Gary still keeps an appreciable pace and maintains his natural sense of balance on the rope bridge he's currently jogging over. This might have something to do with all the rage-inducing water he's drunk. Anger has a way of dulling the senses in favor of approaching an immediate goal.

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi is glad that she doesn't have to wait too long. She was almost starting to wonder if he had passed by already. (She had stopped for that length of time to help fix Dave's injury...) But ultimately, she finally smells him approaching.

Terezi herself hasn't drank too much of her water just yet--There is a such thing as conserving her resources, but she can already feel a bit of the effects. She's restless. She wants to make this kill and get going. There's a part of her that's still uncomfortable with that sentimentality, but that part is also quieter than usual.

She knows that she needs to catch him off guard. He's quick and a little clever, if she has to admit it. So when Gary goes to pass beneath her on the rope bridges, Terezi grabs hold of the side and drops off the edge. In an arc, she swings down and juts her legs out to hopefully catch Gary in the side and knock him off the bridge.

[a_minute_younger]

Despite the whole goal of the Arena being to take out your opponents, Gary has so far gone being only the aggressor, and never the one being aggressed. He is a big guy and knows how to throw his weight around, and is used to being recognized as much--he feels confident running down the center of the bridge, injured or otherwise. Having someone like Terezi come screaming out of the mesh rafters is about the last thing he would expect. She catches him completely off-guard, and in his already abused ribs. Gary gasps in surprise and pain as he tumbles backwards.

His natural agility saves him from immediate death: the loss of footing turns into a backflip, the flailing of his arms finds him purchase on the ropes holding the bridge's wide-spaced planks together. Unfortunately the follow-through twists his shoulder, dislocating it with a grisly pop. Gary shouts, makes another blind grab at the rope with his other hand before he lets go with the first.

He is now hanging on to the edge of the rope bridge with one arm, dazed, in agony, and just above a bubbling pit of acid. This is not going to last long.

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi's landing on the rope bridge is shaking at best--especially after having collided with Gary to shove him off. But she grabs onto a rope and hangs on tightly until both her and the bridge have stopped swaying. Then she gets her footing and takes a sniff at her handywork.

Well, he didn't fall completely, but it might as well be mission accomplished. She's had just enough of that weird water to make her feel weird about just letting him fall. Not about the falling itself, but getting the last word in. Making sure he understands why this is happening to him.

"Still think this is a fun game?" she asks, standing over him. She's not smiling now.

[a_minute_younger]

Terezi's words fall on deaf ears. "Fuck you! Fuck you in your blind-ass--motherfucking..." The string of curses devolves into an incoherent howl as painful spasms wrack his mangled shoulder. Gary is beyond reason now, beyond any sort of rational anger or injustice that he might have felt if Terezi had pulled this on him without the empty water bottle. His unbridled fury keeps strength in the arm supporting him and knuckles white around the rope. "I'll...fucking slay you...cheating bitch!"

[pythianjudgment]

"Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen any time soon." At least she's sure enough of that to be standing over him without too much concern. His arm is messed up, even with his exceptional agility, he's not going to be pulling himself up from this.

"The way I smell it, this will be going one of two ways. Either I wait here long enough to smell you drop to your death--or I crush your fingers and hurry along the process." She couches down, her face coming just that much closer to his. "This is usually the part where I flip a coin to decide your fate, but I'm feeling generous. So I'll let you pick. One scream of fury for me crushing your fingers, two for letting you drop on your own."

[a_minute_younger]

Gary's response unintentionally ends up being two--one as he tries to pull himself up with his good arm, and another when he fails and his arm goes slack. Goddamn his lack of abilities! The adrenaline should have kicked in, should have let him easily right himself and wipe that smile off of Terezi's face in the process, but without it his whole body feels numb and pitifully weak. The whole of Panem is watching him squirm around at the whims of this kid and he hates it.

The least he can do is get the last word in. "Do your fucking worst," he pants, fingers unconsciously gripping the rope tighter. "We'll both come back after this, and I know where you live."

[pythianjudgment]

"Of course you do. We all live in the same building. Idiot." That much seems obviously to her, and she doesn't have the presence of mind not to taunt the boy she's about to kill. He'll come back, but that only means that she can't let her guard down around him. That's all.

"If you're done saying anything important, then I think it'd time for you to go." Grabbing a hold of a different support rope nearby, Terezi kicks out at the boy's fingers, aiming to damage those and release his grip. If his grip doesn't weaken after the first few blows, she'll aim for his head instead.

[a_minute_younger]

Gary, to his credit, does not go out so easily. He manages to wait out the first few blows to his fingers, numbed as they are from holding him up this long; when Terezi's foot comes down on his head, he finally lets go. And then promptly makes a grab at her ankle instead.

[pythianjudgment]

To be honest, she expected him to make that grab, which was why she was holding onto the rope in the first place. If she was in his position, at the very least she would want to drag her murderer down with her. But she's not about to give him that chance.

He grabs onto her ankle, but instead of flailing her leg about, she braces herself on the rope she's holding and slams her ankle (and his fingers) against the corner of the plank she's standing on.

[a_minute_younger]

Gary shouts, one last act of defiance, before his hand spasms and he lets go of Terezi's ankle. Surely he can grab with his other hand--no he can't, Gary realizes too late, his shoulder refuses to work and this simply isn't an option. There must be something else he can do. The bridge is moving away fast and the bubbling pit is approaching at the same alarming rate, but there's always something, there has to be, he can't just--

He splashes into the acid below, the liquid splatters thickly on the underside of the bridge and, with a wet shlorp, swallows Gary up before it goes still once again.

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi hangs onto the rope, shaking her freed ankle with a bit of a wince. That's going to smart, but it was worth it to get him off. She lingers by the edge just long enough to smell the acid oozes back into place, still like the surface of a lake. She frowns thoughtfully, though there's very little concern in her expression, before turning and making her way through the rest of the course.

She hopes the Capitol is satisfied with that.