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

[silverskymagician]

Kaito peered down at the alien and winced a little at the sound as it hit the ground. Honestly, he felt kind of bad about it. Clearly it had been out to eat their faces and generally had not been a very pleasant alien in general, but when it hit the ground like forty feet away, it just looked like a pathetic dead furry animal, like the kind that he sometimes saw on the side of the road.

What a disastrous first contact.

"Yeah, you're telling me. I'm Kaito, by the way."

[gobananas]

"Marco." He leans over the edge, looking down at the splatter on the ground with a wrinkled nose. Not the first time he's seen some alien falls to its death. Not even the ugliest time. Still mega-gross. "So, uh, are we gonna go caveman and eat that thing, or are we just going to hold out and hope that the Gamemakers put a Burger King in this place?"

They're not allies in Marco's eyes - he doesn't trust anywhere near that quickly - but it's in his best interest to cooperate with this guy, and Kaito could have easily ditched him.

"Thanks for not leaving me to get turned into alien food, by the way."

[silverskymagician]

"...Do we have to? I definitely don't wanna go down there unless we're sure it's dead, and not just playing dead. We should be at least 99.999% sure." Besides, Kaito really wasn't looking forward to eating a cheetah alien raw, not even if cheetah kinda sorta sounded like Cheetos.

He waved aside Marco's thanks. "Hey, don't mention it. I couldn't just sit there and let it eat you." Like come on, Marco, who did you think he was? Someone who didn't really grasp the concept of a battle royale, apparently.

[gobananas]

"You could kick it." Notably, Marco totally didn't say 'I' or 'we' right there. "Or we could drop something on it and see if it squirms."

Somehow, they're still doing Science, only this time with a dead alien that may or may not have to be made in xenojerky. Marco's not all that more excited by the prospect than Kaito is - for all he knows it's got acid blood - but he's also practical. And practical says that he hasn't found even a pack of dehydrated turnips in this joint yet.

"Okay, let's find something to drop on top of it."

[silverskymagician]

Yeah, Kaito... Kaito was not going to kick it. Dropping something on it, however, sounded like a good idea. He looked around the area, and found a round sort of robotty-looking thing that didn't look like it was making itself useful.

He dangled it over the gap and dropped it onto the alien.

[gobananas]

The alien doesn't move. It oozes a little more, but it doesn't move.

"He's dead, Jim." Marco does his best McCoy voice and leans back from watching the corpse kind of leak a little more. "We should probably figure out where it came from for when its mom comes out for vengeance on us."

He's kidding, but the sad thing is that that is totally a possibility.

[silverskymagician]

"Well," said Kaito, looking a little green around the gills. "You wanted to, uh. Eat it, right?"

He didn't want to go down there, man. He really didn't. Nor, in fact, did he want to meet its mom. "Does that happen? This is messed up."