thearena | Arena 12 - The Spaceport

Arena 12 - The Spaceport

As usual the Tributes are woken up early for the start of the arena, leaving the Tribute Centre before dawn. A few hours ride in a hovercraft delivers them to their destination where their excited prep teams will outfit them in skintight suits that are colour coordinated by District (D1 is White, D2 is Red, D3 is Orange, D4 is Aqua, D5 is Purple, D6 is Pink, D7 is Light Green, D8 is Blue, D9 is Yellow, D10 is Dark Green, D11 is Lavender, and D12 is Black) over which they will be put into what is instantly identifiable as a spacesuit, complete with oxygen tank and helmet before being loaded into the tubes.

They rise up into what appears to be outer space and immediately upon emerging from the tubes Tributes will find themselves floating upwards with a length of rope the only thing holding them to their podiums. The countdown crackles out from speakers built into each Tributes helmet.

20

19

18…

The Cornucopia sits in the middle of a dusty crater with buildings surrounding it, made up of a number of chained down cases and cubes in limited numbers. Cubes which sharp-eyed Tributes will note look like they fit into the slots beside the doors that lead into the spaceport.

8

7

6…

The mirrored visors of the uniformly white spacesuits make it impossible to tell friend from foe. Tributes fighting for goods will have to risk harming their friends but the alternative, floating off into space or suffocating when their oxygen runs out, leaves them little choice.

3

2

1…

The gong rings out and the countdown’s voice announces, “the Arena is now open” before the line goes dead. The Games have begun.

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"I guess it's kind of like that?" Nitou shrugs. "Especially with the monster-fighting I usually do. But you can't make an RPG that's that much of an adventure!"

And there's a bit of surprise on Nitou's part. "What, you wouldn't want to do anything exciting?" Adventure. It's important.

Aang has met some pretty intimidating gazes in his time. He holds eye contact, his face serious, his hands in front of him so the man can feel safe knowing that he's completely unarmed. Not that he actually needs any kind of weapon to be dangerous, but it's the thought.

"I'm a waterbender. That means I can bend the blood. Probably. I haven't really tried it before?" For good reason. Proper bloodbending is absolutely horrifying and goes against everything he stands for, but bending blood outside of a body doesn't seem too bad, especially when he's trying to use it to save someone's life. "My bending's come back in this arena."

"Thor," Carlos breathes. It doesn't take more than a second for Carlos to understand -- he saw people use powers out there. He knows this is an arena where, at least part of the time, Tributes will be able to tap into their own paranormal abilities, where certain laws would be suspended.

And here Thor is, right in front of him, making it clear that out of all parallel universes out there, Carlos is in the one possible reality where Thor had found him. He is the luckiest Carlos in the multiverse.

It means they have work to do.

He meets Thor's eyes for a long moment, resolve flickering behind them. The smallest nod--a sign of understanding. Only then does his tone turn casual. "Thank you," he says. "...sorry about kicking you. I didn't know it was you -- I keep doing that," Carlos admits. "Last time, when Steve Rogers tried to rescue me, I gave him a black eye."

"I -- got it!"

Clementine bends down and scrabbles for every broken piece of metal she can find, filling her hands and standing back up to throw them at the creature again. She misses as much as she hits and tries not to shake as the mutt's attention turns to the little human that's trying to hurt it. The creatures makes some kind of hissing sound that chills Clem down to the bone.

It's going to come for her, it's going to. "Luke! Hurry!"

He has Nick and that's all it takes for Clementine to start backing up in a hurry, throwing the last couple pieces she has in her hands until Luke's level with her and then, then they're not alone. "Don't!" she tries to call out to the other Tributes, too late and there's nothing she can do but try and make an escape with her friends.

Clementine runs, keeping pack with Luke as he carries Nick on his shoulders. She see's the door as he points it out, "On it!"

Quickly she works to get it open and waves him inside the moment it is. Once Luke's in Clementine will follow.

Psii's stomach dropped to his boots. He'd dreaded this, running into someone he knew even remotely. They were all told to kill each other. How the hell were they supposed to get around that? It was awkward all around. At least he hadn't had a vision of his death at the hands of a girl too blind to notice the eye-searing orange of her jumpsuit. He remained where he was, hidden—he hoped.

The spacesuit flopped like a rag doll as she tugged it, and he mentally scrambled to make it move like a floating troll should. Leg goes here, arm goes there.... Psii briefly raised one of its hands in a belated greeting gesture.

This was so fucking stupid. The helmet's mirrorlike glass prevented Terezi from seeing the lack of a face inside, but how long could he keep this up? He didn't want to run away outright, afraid of losing an ally. But he didn't want to let his guard down either. He crept slowly behind and let her frog march his spacesuit where she wished, hoping she'd get down to whatever business she wanted him for.

Venus echoes the list in everyone's head out loud. "Black Tom Cassidy, Molotov Cocktease and Sigma Klim on our hit list, I'm guessing?"

She doesn't know about some of the new recruits, but there are old guard who are uncooperative with the general will, to say the least. Venus wants to appoint herself as some sort of judge and exonerate only the children here, the ones who had to do a whole other goddamned Arena just to spite the Tributes watching on, but she doesn't know how her newfound family will look on her mowing her way through other adult Tributes. She doesn't ask yet. She'll wait until it becomes necessary, if they last that long.

"Molotov and Black Tom will be together, wherever they are. If I remember right, his powers have something to do with plants, so he might be shit out of luck here, but he might be able to shoot fire...I don't remember. Sorry, he's like one of those C-list celebrities in my world that you only hear about when the big dogs aren't doing anything cool. Tried to destroy my school once." She breathes deep. "Sigma Klim I got nothing on. And of course there's whatever Gamemaker traps they've rigged up."

There's a confidence coming from her that's practically humming over her body like a second skin. The Arena isn't home but it's her workplace. She knows the rules here, in front of the cameras and the audience. She turns a corner and makes sure no one's down either hallway. She chooses left because there's no reason not to.

"We can find a place to stay for a few hours until my powers get under control, then I can start scouting better places. I just shouldn't do anything fancy for a little bit."

Gary's response is a bit more dramatic. There's a gasp, then an instinctive scuttle backwards to put some distance between himself and this...impressively muscular fellow he's just run into. These sleeker spacesuits don't leave a lot to the imagination. All the better for Gary to see just how big of a mess he's gotten himself into immediately after escaping another. He should run now.

...But he's not attacking, not yet, which means there's still a chance to bargain with him. And Gary does think he's familiar. Annoyingly so. What was his name again? Why does this feel so important? The adrenaline has a way of muddying the finer details of Gary's memories, he's found. It'll come to him in a moment.

If he has a moment to spare, anyways. "--Wait!" Gary holds up his working arm, looking somewhere between ready to flee and ready to make the most important decision of his teenage life. Neither happens, of course, he just wants to get Thor's attention and make sure he doesn't snap while Gary tries to remember what he needs to do here. In the meanwhile, he just stands there and waits for a reaction, or for the appropriate information to surface. Whichever comes first.

Exciting. Ha. Hahahahahaha. Yeah, maybe Kaito's life could use a little less excitement at this point.

He decided to roll with the question, though, and held out his palms. "You don't think bringing smiles to people's faces is exciting? That's what magic is about for me!"

By now, Anna's just wishing this were over. This miserable arena--less than an hour in, and she's already done with it. If only Black Tom had finished her off properly. But no--she just had to survive. Had to have one more conversation with Bro that's just ending in confusion and the heaviest feeling in her heart.

She's in love with him.

She's in love with this idiot and neither of them can give each other a straight answer about it and it's eating her up inside to know that there's a possibility they're both avoiding just because it might hurt. Because getting attached is too dangerous.

So she doesn't bother getting her hopes up when he replies, and it's best that she doesn't, because right on cue, he's avoiding again. Anna slumps to the floor, voice a little hollow, ringing in her ears where the pressure is closing them off.

"Oh. Right. Thanks."

The air crackles with static, nerves tingling. His gaze makes a quick sweep across the room he’s no more than a few paces in, soaking in information. No vents (good); a set of doors opposite them, which meant they weren’t trapped; a cluster of crates, metal barrels, some blinking machinery. He half-turns back, sweat crawling ticklishly down his sides.

“Clem!!”

For the breathless split second he’s left waiting for her – a time that seems to stretch an eternity – his brain is suddenly overrun by a noisy, vivid images of the creature catching up, the creature slamming her to the floor and tearing screaming, bleeding, too-red chunks out of her. A cold sickness roils in his gut, lingering even as she hurries in and the doors are jammed shut behind her.

Luke crouches by a corner, easing Nick off his shoulders and onto the floor before hurrying to help block off the way they came. The crates feel like they’re loaded with cinderblocks - too heavy to lift and stack without straining something or other in the process, he figures - so they make do with shoving several flush against the door as fast as adrenaline-fueled bursts of strength allow. The effort leaves him panting softly, fresh beads of sweat gathering at his temples.

“Okay-- okay, I think that’ll hold,” ‘But we probably shouldn’t stick around too long to find out’ is what’s implied and left unsaid as Luke looks away and turns his attention back to Nick, moving to his side. Kneeling, he takes him gently by the shoulder and gives him a shake.

“Nick—“ He tries while briefly looking him over, his voice low, urging. “Nick, c’mon. We--”

The rest dies in his throat as his thoughts come to a sudden, screeching halt, crashing together. Nick’s body is all too still – a realization that doesn’t quite click until he thinks to bring the back of his hand to Nick’s lips and waits to feel the heat of his breath lap his knuckles. He feels like his own breath is being crushed out of him when nothing comes.

"Oh Christ...” He gasps out. Icy tendrils of fear snake, plunging into the hollow of his chest. Stunned, he presses fingers into Nick’s throat under the hinge of his jaw, only mildly reassured by the presence of a pulse. Thready, but there. He doesn’t waste another second trying to guess at how many minutes have passed since Nick had collapsed.

It comes back to him - first aid training for his stint as a summer camp volunteer and, more recently, the brief refresher Carlos had provided - and muscle memory kicks in. He watches himself pinch Nick’s nose shut, tilting his head back and chin up with an unexpected, confident steadiness and to his hands. Pulling in a breath, he then ducks to press his mouth to Nick’s and forces air into his lungs.

Once.

Twice.

He glances tensely to Nick’s chest after the second, watching it deflate. It doesn't rise.

Fuck.

He shares another breath - and then another and another and another, fighting to tamp down the panic trying to rise into his throat and pretend this was just another training dummy. Not his best friend lying motionless and edging ever closer to that place of irreversible brain damage.

C'mon, don' do this to me, man--

Edited 2015-01-03 16:30 (UTC)

"Is he alive?!" she doesn't mean to demand but her heart is in her throat and she needs to know as soon as they're done blockading the door. "I didn't hear the cannon!"

Yes. She didn't hear the cannon yet. Or maybe she missed it in her panic at the creature and the screams from the Tributes who go in its way instead of them. Clem wants to believe its the first option, no cannon fire and Nick was still alive but... but she watches Luke's face, then looks down to Nick, her dark skin going paler as she see's the same thing Luke does.

"No... no!" Clementine's on her knees beside Nick's body in a second, her small hands grabbing onto and shoving his shoulder, then pushing at his chest but she's took weak to apply the force needed for what she's trying to do. "C'mon Nick! Breathe!"

She looks back up at Luke, "You have to help him! Do CPR!"

“Yeah, I’m workin’ on it!” He huffs after the third set of rescue breaths, unease balling up tight in his chest. But it isn’t until Clem’s hands thrust into his field of vision and he sees them push frantically against Nick that he snaps out of the bubble of his thoughts, losing focus.

He suspects she hasn’t the muscle to exert the pressure needed to start a grown man’s heart – or stop it – but the smallest possibility is enough to put him on edge. Carlos had suggested that compressions on a beating heart could do damage, but whether it did or it didn’t they just couldn’t take that risk.

“Don’t!" Luke’s voice is tinged with desperation, fingers pressing lightly against her hand. “We don’ need to push -- his heart’s beatin’, it's fine, he jus’—“

‘Just.’ There’s no such thing as ‘just’ when a man lay dying and he recognizes the poor choice of word the moment it slips from his mouth. “--he ain’t breathin’.”

He regrets not having said so from the start what with the poor girl so ready to help. God, does he ever know what it’s like to be fiercely anxious, buzzing with pent-up energy, and yet so powerless to do anything with it. “I need you to keep a close eye on him for me,” He dips, pinching Nick’s nostrils and readying him for another breath. “Tell me if you see him movin’ or breathin’ on his own.”

Wouldn’t hurt to have a pair of extra eyes on this.

The fact that Aang doesn't look away speaks well of him. So does the honesty in his face and voice -- the boy uses familiar words to mean strange things, but he is not lying.

However, blood-bending sounds distinctly unsavory, and Thorongil is not about to agree to it until he knows what he is getting into.

"And what, pray, is bending? I know the word, but don't quite take your meaning."

Even a few years out, it’s still so easy to fall back into being a soldier, into the habits drilled into him for over ten years. Get in, take care of any opposition, get out, protect PC at all costs. It’s what makes him listen out for the sounds of Nick’s footsteps just as much for the sound of more robots or another incoming threat, what makes him turn automatically when he hears Nick stumble.

He slides his arm around Nick’s waist without asking permission, slinging Nick’s arm over his own shoulder at the same time so he can help support him. “Working on it,” he replies, scanning down the hallways.

Goddamn what he wouldn’t give to have his wings. Then again, they might not be much help, in small quarters like this.

"What, like making sure people don't fall into despair so Phantoms are born?" This is a use of magic that Nitou understands quite well, actually.

It's kind of interesting, how the Capitol always insists on grouping them by district. These arbitrary assignments that mean nothing to the tributes themselves without historical context. To her, District 3 is just a number. The bright orange jumpsuit is just a terrible, terrible symbol that just happens to be the least stealthy garment ever made.

She'd kill someone from her own district if she had to, but she doesn't have to. Not yet, at least. It might be a policy that will cost her later, but Natasha isn't going to kill anyone who doesn't attack her first.

Look at her. She's practically a bleeding heart, here.

"I did. Weapons aren't a necessity, but they're useful," she can kill a man with her bare hands, but it's much quicker to dispatch him with a knife. If she were a better person, or perhaps less practical, she might offer him one. But that would be foolish.

Instead, she nods at his space suit. "There's a lot on there you can use. The straps would probably be a good makeshift garrote."

The distance is just fine with her. She's seen what he can do at close quarters. She'll never forget how easily he had thrown her against a car, like she weighed nothing. Like she was merely a doll. That arm of his was deadly and unrelenting, and she has a gun to compensate for her lack of super strength.

Not that he isn't a great shot, but it probably only depends on whether he has one too. And whether she's quicker.

"Are you asking out of concern?"

It's kind of an amusing concept, actually.

He doesn't even resist when Sam helps him up. It's for the best that Sam takes the matter to his own hands, because Nick wouldn't think to ask for help, not out of stubbornness but of panic more like.

It's not even an hour in and already his prospect for surviving doesn't look good. Figures.

Dread looms over him as his ears pick up on the whirring noises from the machine - a fully functional one this time and it's approaching them fast. "Shit!"

"We can only hope." Tom frowns and brings his arm up a little around her waist, to make walking easier. "Come now. Shelter can't be far."

"Phantoms...? Are you talking about ghosts?" It sounded like Nitou was talking about phantoms with a capital P, though, so who know.

For Natasha, it's like one of her worst nightmares. Like they brought him in for leverage, like he was a very distinct message they were sending her. We can take what you love from you so easily, is what they're trying to say, and she has to admit that it feels true at the moment.

She feels a little better when he takes the phaser, because it feels so much more like him. And also because she trusts his aim, and has for years now. She feels better with him at her back.

"I need to know what the last thing you remember is," Natasha tells him, and there's insistence in her voice, in the way she looks at him. "Because the day I arrived here, I was told there was another version of me. From another universe."

Familiarity is about the last thing that Nill expects when she does this the first time around, and it shows in the way her eyes go just a little wide. She certainly doesn't expect them to grin like that, and the surprise at that shows much more quickly. Her wings flutter, and it takes her a moment to realize that she's staring at little. This guy always manages to throw her for a loop somehow.

"Yes. You're used to it?"

With how capricious Arenas can be, every second that passes is a second in which their plan runs the risk of being jostled. If Thor had lost Carlos at the Cornucopia, the frustration would be unbearable. He cannot do this without his vision and his knowledge, just as Carlos needs his protection and his power.

Their intentions are made clear in that brief moment, and it earns Carlos the smallest smirk so that he understands how eager he is to do this. At least he can play it off as amusement at his memories of Steve.

"Steve is far too pleasant to hold it against you, I'm sure." His voice is soft, he's still concerned for him. "Come, surely someone has a medical kit." He scoops his hands under him, moving to lift him off the ground so they can find help.

"Yeah."

That's all he says, and it's said gruffly. He knows damn well that it wasn't the response that she'd been hoping for, just as it's not the response a part of him had wanted to give. But what can he do? He can save her life, that's what he can do. Just the same as he'd tried the very first time they'd met. Except this time, he's going to do what he can to make sure she doesn't die or that he has to mercy kill her again.

Bro avoids casting one last look her way before he heads off to find stuff to fix her up with. Things become easier the further away he gets from her, like there's a thick air of confusion around her that makes it hard to think clearly. Once away, he can better focus and shove everything else back.

At once Clementine pulls her hands back as if burnt from underneath Luke's, looking exceptionally young in that moment as she realises she could have been making things worse, not better. She's trying hard not to panic, she is but if Nick dies so quick...

The fact that he won't really be dead isn't a comfort, especially with the looming possibility that he could come back as a Walker in the arena, a Walker that Clem and Luke would have to deal with. No, she can't think about that, she has to listen to Luke. Luke knows what he's doing, she believes that.

"O-okay, yeah, I can do that."

Swallowing thickly she looks down at Nick, willing him to go ahead and breath. "Please, Nick..."

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Page 18 of 28

Arena 12 - The Spaceport

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A little bit of self-reference here but they're from the same world.

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/wrap

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we can probably wrap this one up in a tag or two?

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