Arena 12 - The Spaceport

[etcircenses]

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.

Comments

Brock Samson | OTA

[samson]

Inside the airlock, Brock doesn't waste time. He's sure that a good chunk of people who survived that out there are now going to spend a minute catching their breath once they reached safety, but he's not stupid. His oxygen tank is depleted, useless, and most importantly it is heavy, so he shrugs it off and leaves it there. His helmet is trickier, quite frankly, not only because he doesn't really get the latch, but because he doesn't know if he'll need it later. But it impedes his peripheral vision, so he sheds it too, leaving it along the way as he starts jogging through the corridors, just to get away from the door and find a place to regroup.

GENERAL SPACEPORT SHENANIGANS.

Once he's far enough from the airlock, Brock takes care to move a bit more stealthily. He's looking for air vents, some place to crawl into so he isn't a huge fucking Smurfy target just strolling through the corridors, but it doesn't seem to particularly be in the cards.

Whenever he comes across a dimly-lit corridor, he ducks down it, hoping it will lead him to a more secluded room. He mostly just winds up in some stupidly florescent corridor again, though, and he is beginning to suspect that this is less a spaceport and more a Habitrail. It's ridiculous and insulting and he's getting angry.

SCIENCE LAB.

Eventually, the stars align or some such bullshit, and Brock actually finds a room. It's below the endless maze of corridors, and he has to wonder what kind of crazy Winchester widow designed the station.

But it's a room. Finally. He stands there for a second as the door whooshes shut behind him, and he realizes it's some kind of lab. Brock is not a super-scientist, but he has spent enough time in labs to know that this is maybe a place to scrounge for supplies. Acids or something. Test tubes he can shove into people's eyes. Things like that.

He's rummaging through the drawers as quietly as he can, and eventually he comes to the conclusion that there is fucking nothing in here. Which is, you know, fantastic.

But there is another door, which ostensibly leads to another part of the lab, and he moves toward it, his back to the first door.

science lab

[silverskymagician]

The door opened, and standing behind it was just this awkward-looking Japanese kid who had somehow managed to find a Personorb? It didn't actually seem all that useful, but maybe he could throw it at someone and run away if it turned out he was going to run into some Mad Max mutants or something.

Kaito did not. Really. Know what was going on or who this giant gaijin was, and actually it was probably a testament to how unprepared he was for this that he was really more weirded out by running into a giant American (?) than he was by someone who might actually try to kill him.

He'd stripped off his outer suit, revealing that he was wearing District 7 colors. "H... hello! Am I interrupting something? You know what, I can just leave."

[samson]

Brock's reaction to the perfectly innocuous event of someone opening a door is maybe very telling about what kind of person he is -- he quickly rips the drawer completely out of the desk he's rifling through and holds it up over his head like he's about to just hurl it at the intruder. Who winds up... being a teenager. Apparently. So... Brock just then casually sets the drawer down on top of the desk like he didn't just do the thing.

"There's nothing in here, so," he says, gesturing vaguely out from his sides, indicating the whole of the lab, and then he jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "I was gonna check the other door, though."

[silverskymagician]

Cool Brock, thank you, that didn't fill Kaito with mortal terror at all. He didn't scream, but his mouth definitely dropped open as he put up his arms to ward off the drawer, jesus fucking christ.

When Brock didn't hurl it at him, he lowered his arms slowly, like he wasn't entirely sure this wasn't some kind of fake out. This was awkward. "Do you, um. I can help."

What could he possibly help Brock with WHO KNEW, but he was going to edge carefully into the room anyway, in case there were more terrifying things inside than men tearing drawers out of things and possibly throwing them.

[samson]

Yes, you're welcome. He tries.

For his part, Brock is still acting like this is a completely normal, mundane thing. He didn't just flip out and almost kill you with a piece of furniture, what are you talking about?

"With a door," he asks a bit skeptically, because please, kid. Whoever you are. He can handle doors. But whatever, it's fine; Brock waves a little at the door behind him and lumbers over there.

"By the way, try anything and I'm throwing the door at you," he adds over his shoulder, also with extreme casualness.

[silverskymagician]

"Yeah, okay, that's terrifying," said Kaito, shuffling up after Brock regardless.

"What kind of things are you looking for?" He'd been thinking maybe Brock was looking for food or something that would help him navigate this crazy lab, but maybe a GIANT SCARY KNIFE was more Brock's style. It seemed... right.

[samson]

Yes, a giant scary knife, if only. He would settle for some scalpels at this point, though, but nothing really seemed to be in here except useless clutter.

"Supplies," he grunts very descriptively, because that could mean anything. That is maybe the point, though -- he doesn't want to give this kid any ideas if he's just gonna stab him in the back with some Pyrex the second Brock says beakers.

Satisfied that this answer is good enough, Brock presses the big red button next to the door that he assumes is like an open/close button? He's right, the door shwooshes open, but the room beyond is dumb as all hell and doesn't really make sense. The ceiling is way higher than it should be, there are ridiculous platforms everywhere, and that is possibly some kind of mysterious sludge over there, inexplicably.

Brock just stares through the door into the next room. "What."

[silverskymagician]

Kids and beakers, you needed to watch out for those. It was like cats and laser pointers, but only if laser pointers could be broken and used to punch a hole in someone.

Kaito didn't really know what was going on in this room, but at least some of it looked similar to the equipment he'd been dicking around with earlier, and anyway, there were big red buttons. Buttons. Plural.

Like why would they put a big red button right there on the floor if they didn't want teenagers pushing them, right? So obviously, Kaito was just going to hop on over to the button by the stairs and absolutely nothing terrible would happen. "Hey, check it out! What's this do?"

[samson]

Oh my god. Oh my god, it's like Brock just can't get away from teenage boys and their devil-may-care bullshit. This is his lot in life. Dealing with kids as they drag him down into terminal stupidity.

"What -- no," he nearly barks, scrambling into the room to try and stop this insanity before it starts.

[silverskymagician]

"What? It looks like it didn't do anythiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIII --"

The instant Kaito stepped off the button and back onto the floor, the panel under his feet launched him upwards. Suddenly, he was sailing up into the air. Suddenly, maybe it seemed like kind of a bad idea to step on random buttons, but look man, in his defense, it had totally been painted bright red.

Re: Brock Samson | OTA

[gobananas]

This is not the first time Marco's been wandering around a foreign space station trying to avoid a bunch of people who want to kill him, and that, friends, is a sad sad fact for a kid who's barely fifteen.

He held up remarkably well getting through the Cornucopia, in a way that will likely impress Sponsors who've written him off as cannon fodder bound to die in the first ten minutes. People on the outside are adjusting their bets on him, praising the fact that he makes smart decisions and doesn't scream nearly as much or as girlishly as his pre-Arena interviews would have suggested.

He listens at doors before he opens them. Sometimes he pokes his space helmet around corners before he makes the turn, since, you know, he saw people firing lasers and would really rather not have a face full of gruesome burn unit victim, thanks. When he listens in at this one, he doesn't hear anything, probably because Brock's being stealthy about it.

He slides open the door and feels his insides turn to ice water as he finds himself face-to-back with the most muscular guy he's literally ever seen in the flesh. Marco would take bets that the guy in front of him could use Arnold as dental floss. And, unfortunately, the opening door made too much noise for him to be ignored.

Realistically, he only hope for not getting turned into a human pancake is if this guy doesn't want to turn him into a human pancake. "Thor?"

[samson]

Brock is beginning to think that maybe he should have stomped around in here making monster sounds or something, for all the good being stealthy was doing. At least if he made monster sounds, he would quit having people stumble upon him -- but then again, the element of surprise is always useful.

Unfortunately, the lab is really empty, so it's not like he can even throw any scalpels or anything. What kind of lab doesn't even have scalpels?

There is a dead computer on a nearby desk, though, and as soon as Brock hears the door open, he lunges for the monitor and whirls, whipping it at the intruder. Well, slightly to the side of the intruder, so the monitor smashes against the wall next to the door instead; he'd seen that it was a kid in the last second, after it was too late to quit actually throwing the thing but not too late to avoid blowing an actual child's head off with a computer screen.

"Don't sneak up on people," he says in a tone that is probably alarmingly without guilt or surprise or... any emotion except mildly exasperated chastisement.

[gobananas]

Marco's just going to ignore the fact that the shriek he just made right now? Yeah, it's super girly. If another dude had made that in front of him he'd be raking him over coals for like, a year. I mean, it's not like Marco hasn't screamed a few times in his life, but it seems like doing it a lot doesn't necessarily translate to doing it in a dignified fashion.

He's leaped back a solid five feet, and for the moment, he's not all that keen on closing that gap again. He lets out a deep breath.

"Whoa. Okay. I'm guessing you never got picked last for the softball team."

[samson]

It's okay. Brock has heard far more girlish screams in his life, so apart from a bit of an eyebrow quirk, he's not going to comment. He is going to judge, though. Silently.

"No," he confirms a little absently, and turns around to start rummaging through desks again. Without looking up, he makes a welcoming motion with his hand. "Come in or get out, but don't just stand in the door. Somebody's gonna see you."

And then you'll get murdered and I'll have to deal with it, is how the rest of that goes.

[gobananas]

Marco puts his money on a guy who opts out of killing him on sight not hating his personality so much to kill him later, and so he walks in. Especially since Muscles McGee is even giving him unsolicited advice.

It occurs to Marco that while he's not the trusting sort, he wouldn't really mind having the allegiance of a guy who can toss a computer like he's skipping rocks at the lake.

"So. Anyone ever told you you sound like that guy from Seinfeld?"

[samson]

Brock is maybe starting to regret adjusting the angle when he threw the monitor. A little bit. If what he has to look forward to is painful smalltalk, he'd rather just deal with the guilt.

Okay, no, that's hyperbole. But still, the point remains, this is maybe going to be unbearable.

Brock looks up with a bit of a long-suffering expression. "What?"

general shenanigans!

[a_minute_younger]

Gary is taking a risk with this one, he realizes. He doesn't recognize this guy, and he's a big guy, and even someone as oblivious as Gary is can tell when a dude is fucking done with getting lost in some corridors. But he really does need the help and, hey, maybe they can strike a deal here--and if not, Gary is confident enough in his abilities to assume he can run away.

Not that any of these thoughts cross his mind at first, naturally; Brock is just the first person he sees when he rounds the corner, and he's too focused on finding some assistance to consider hiding instead. Gary is very hungry and that cake in the room he found a few minutes ago is quite tempting.

"Psst!" The teen pokes his head into the fluorescent-lighted corridor some distance behind where Brock passed by, voice kept to a stage whisper. "Hey, you! Looking for something?"

WOW this is really late.... holidays...

[samson]

There are many things that one can say about Brock Samson, but 'subtle' is not really one of them. When he's angry, he's visibly angry, and when he's done, well. You know how animals can instinctively sense when an earthquake is coming? It's kind of like that, except the earthquake is Brock flying off the handle about innocuous, mundane stuff.

Case in point -- somebody starts whispering at him like they're selling watches out of their trench coat, and Brock whirls around with a screwdriver in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. "Get out here where I can see you."

np, same here!

[a_minute_younger]

That's not a very positive response. Gary's eyes widen in the millisecond his head is still visible before he ducks backwards, a reaction too fast to be normal. His feet have already taken him a bit down the perpendicular hallway by the time Brock calls for him. Gary stops, then. Why is he running after he got this guy's attention? Instinct, he supposes. Funny how it got him into this situation and is simultaneously trying to remove him from it.

Deciding that there's no danger to be had from a man armed with various pointy bits from the hardware store, Gary tiptoes back into the intersection several moments later, as directed. One of his hands is raised, palm out. His other arm is clearly broken and dangling at his side. There's a small, hopeful smile pasted on his face.

"Hi! I'm here. No need to get violent or anything." The teen chuckles, nervously leaning his weight between his feet. "Just looking for some company, you know? Maybe we can help each other out!"

[samson]

Brock is still waiting when he comes back, growing more on edge every second. He heard his feet pounding as he ran away, which was a good and proper response, but... he was expecting him to come back. And he did. Which was... a thing? It wasn't great, because this is clearly a teenager, so Brock doesn't get to horrifically murder him. It's also not bad, because... he's a teenager and Brock doesn't get to horrifically murder him.

It is a little embarrassing, though. Clearing his throat, Brock tucks the little makeshift weapons back in his belt, though he's still wary. Just because he wouldn't kill this kid didn't mean that the kid wouldn't kill him.

"You should probably be a little more careful. I could kill you super easy," he says, frowning, then notices his arm. "Broken?"

[a_minute_younger]

Gary pales slightly. Yes, he's aware that Brock could kill him, along with pretty much anyone else here that he isn't friends with (along with those that he is friends with, but he doesn't consider that). The less he thinks about how true that is, or the more he can convince himself that it isn't true, the better.

"A little bit, yeah." It's fine, though! Totally fine. Gary seems to act like it is--he doesn't appear to be in any pain, though he moves and breathes rather stiffly. It, and the swelling of several fractured ribs, are only somewhat inconvenient. "But you wouldn't kill me, because I'm offering to help! Who does that?"

[samson]

"A... lot of people, actually," Brock says, squinting, because holy shit, this kid is gonna get so super murdered. Brock almost feels bad for him.

But anyway, more importantly, his arm that is a little bit broken is maybe a problem. This kid might be a really good actor, but Brock is running under the assumption that it's not an act and that he really is that genuinely nice. Or naïve? Maybe both.

"How are you gonna help me with a busted arm? C'mon, maybe we can find something to splint it," he says, looking around for a door. The halls are littered with science labs, so it shouldn't be hard to find something to use.

[a_minute_younger]

Gary gives a nervous sort of laugh. Hah! It's funny, because...because it's true...damn, this is depressing. Gary is more than happy to change the subject to something that doesn't involve strangers killing him for sport.

"I don't need both arms to show you where food is!" The teen flashes a chipper smile. "I found some cake! It's good, I promise, I've already had some that was lying around in another room. I just can't, uh. Get to this one."

Because of his arm? Because of other things? Gary doesn't say, and his twitching poker face says that maybe there is more to this situation than he would like to admit.

[samson]

Yeah, that is... suspicious. A little bit. Brock squints and slowly turns back to look this kid over. If he's trying to lure him into some kind of death trap, he's doing a very bad job of it. He ought to be flailing around about his broken arm and crying about his dying sibling trapped in the other room or something...

But maybe Brock is being paranoid. That is a possibility.

Still, he'd like to know what he's getting into before he's knee-deep in it. "What... why."

[a_minute_younger]

Brock isn't too far off the mark. Gary bites his lip and stares at the ceiling. With some thought and delicate wording, he could probably make this sound less dangerous than it might be. It has, however, never been in Gary's nature to think too critically about things, so instead he lies.

"Well there was someone else hanging around, and I couldn't get past him. Big, big guy. Uh." Shit, who can he pin this on? The first person that comes to his mind, obviously. "Long blonde hair, red spacesuit. Thor, I think? Yeah, that guy." That sounds convincing enough for Gary, so he keeps going. "Anyway, there's not a lot of food around and I thought maybe I could take him on if I found someone to partner up with, you know? One of us distracts, the other grabs the cake, that kind of thing?"