thearena | In the Race Against Time, I'll Come Out a Winner [Open]

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In the Race Against Time, I'll Come Out a Winner [Open]

WHO| Black Tom Cassidy, Molotov Cocktease and you!
WHAT| Joint log for the power couple, come one, come all.
WHEN| First week.
WHERE| A science lab for the joint prompt, anywhere else for the second.
WARNINGS/NOTES| Death and violence in the subthreads. Please let us know in the header if you want Tom or Molotov in specific!

Tom isn't particularly good at hiding his frustration with their current predicament. He'd entertained the fantasy of dominating this Arena, taking a rightful revenge over the people who chose to punish him both inside and out of the ring for playing the game the way the Capitol had so requested. He's in a sour mood for the most part, loath to leave Molotov and yet made irascible by her impediment, no matter how understandable it is (she does have a burn the size of a bread-load across her abdomen).

The twice-an-hour slamming certainly isn't helping matters. Even finding ways to strap themselves in hasn't prevented them from getting roughed up, and Tom has only just managed to keep from complaining. Molotov's worse off than he is, after all. He can only bemoan his bruised face and twisted ankle so much.

They trade off shifts sleeping with limited success. Molotov's injury doesn't seem to be getting infected, which is fortunate, and the Arena is sprawling enough that they've found a science lab to hole up in that hasn't seen much traffic lately. Tom's certain that the relative peace won't last, but he has a theory that the first nasty things the Gamemakers will send at them will be through the ominous abandoned zones in the lower floors.

The one thing he can take great delight in is knowing that he and he alone has the pleasure of resting next to Molotov, even if it is in this terrible environment. For all the troubles of adjusting to a partnership where they're both calling shots, rather than him being the de facto brains of the operation, he appreciates the company. It's worth the irritation of having to consult another person who can't be easily swayed.

The science lab, thankfully, has a window of one-way glass, and he and Molotov spend their time behind that, watching as people come through. He's sure that once upon a time, scientists were supposed to stand behind this, watching their test subjects. They have no friends, but some of the people they'd rather not pick a fight with they let pass unharmed.

As for the others, Tom's quite fond of wandering out from behind the pane of glass with a bit of a swagger to his limp to add some drama to the impending conflict.

-/-

Tom's not afraid when he scouts out the empty corridors, but he is wary. The limitations of his powers have become painfully obvious in this Arena, and with his reputation very well ruined by the events of the last one, he can't afford many chance encounters. He has faith that he and Molotov can win, one or the other, but not that their luck will make it happen.

There's a fine line between arrogance and overconfidence.

He has Molotov's switchblade tucked against his wrist, ready to emerge at a moment's notice. This time, he doesn't bother with pleasantries with anyone who's seen footage of him in the last Arena; he either avoids them entirely or he engages them with militaristic efficiency. He pauses at corners and listens at each one to make sure he doesn't just stumble across someone, and he keeps to shadows when he can, never entering a room with too many places for someone to catch him unawares.

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Tom doesn't stop Grantaire if he moves for the knife, but he has no intent of letting him get away, and so he pursues, throwing an elbow down onto Grantaire's lower back and then kicking for his legs.

Tom's face glints with a grin that can only be sadistic, hungry for combat and for victory, for the rush of power that comes with bringing another to his knees. That Grantaire is easy prey hardly dampens the thrill at all.

"Come on, now. I took you for a nihilist, not a coward."

Grantaire falls, of course he does, the action is nearly expected. Nonetheless, knowing does not keep his knees from hitting the floor with force and he grunts at the pain. He rolls onto his back, scrambling backward and trying to stand. He is faintly aware that he is crawling back in the direction of the knife. He is also more firmly aware that he is being played with.

"Something you missed!" he blurted. "Let me go and your unforgivable inattention is forgiven."

Albert's reference had gone right over Felicity's head, but she was content to play make believe anyway. Humming softly, she continued on her merry way, skipping along after Jet playfully. What a pleasant reminder it was that she didn't have to be a complete grown up if she didn't want to. "What do you see up ahead, Captain Link? Are there any space pirates afoot?"

"You're no fun when you're detoxing, Grantaire. I prefer you soaked." Tom approaches slowly, teeth flashing with a maddened grin in the dim light. "Go on, go for the knife. It may even things out."

He feels no guilt as he stalks forward, dragging his bad leg ever so slightly. He feels the same rush of power and satisfaction as he would if Grantaire were squirming beneath him in a business deal, wiggling like a lizard trying to find a corner to escape into. It's not about bloodshed, and it's not about that thin membrane between life and death, and Grantaire's likely resurrection is hardly even a consideration.

The truth is, Tom's never agreed with the simple principle that all lives are worthwhile. Everything that follows from that - killing being wrong, principally - falls under that weight like a domino. It's hedonism without restraint, pleasure-seeking without the underpinnings of remorse.

Carlos's golden retriever is completely out of control, off the leash and mauling the raccoon. He buries his face in one hand and sighs. At this point, Carlos isn't sure if he should step in further or just wait until Thor is done.

He'll wait another couple of seconds and only speak up again if it looks like they're about to do each other serious harm.

Once free of Thor's grip the Soldier starts to back up, wanting to give himself a little more space and time to assess the situation but his opponent isn't about to let him. He finds himself seized and lifted, in the moment of which he attempts to lash out downwards with his left arm at Thor, trying to strike anywhere he can reach with the power of the cybernetic behind the blow.

Then Thor throws him.

Bucky does his best on landing to relax and go with the momentum of his fall, rolling across the ground but wincing when his arm catches on the metal floor with a resounding clang that he hopes won't be a dinner bell to anything nearby. He pulls his legs up and brings them forward with enough force to flip his body up off the ground and back onto his feet.

Then he charges forwards, bringing up both hands to launch a quick succession of blows at Thor's face, neck and chest if he's able.

We are perfectly aligned in that opinion. He glances back to the knife again, licking his dry lips. It wouldn't serve him well, he knew that. His body was weak, he suspected the moment he was caught his own struggles would show all the pathetic strength of a child, and disarming him would be done with humiliating ease.

It would be so much easier to give up. He wondered what it said about the grasping desperation of human nature, to struggle even in the face of death. He wondered what it said about him, he who lambasted the trouble of trying and then acted thus. Grantaire knew himself perfectly capable of facing death unflinching but not like this. He supposed that should have meant something.

He scrambles for the knife and is just about to seize hold of it, his fingers brush against the hilt, when suddenly the jarring feeling of weightlessness blankets him and he is floating. The touch of his fingers knocks the knife spinning away from him in midair and it strikes the floor, bouncing off and floating further away. Grantaire sucks in a startled breath, his heart beating fast as he looks back to Tom with wide eyes, praying that he is still out of immediate reach.

Jet's grin widened and he turned back to continue heading down the hall. An adventure through space with potential danger around every corner. It was so easy to imagine.

"None yet, Madame Worthington, but stay on your toes, these fiends like to set traps! How does it look from the rear, Mr. Heinrich? And spare us your senile rants." He shot a soft look back at the both of them, to Felicity to show her he appreciated her indulgence and the one for Albert so he'd know Jet didn't really think he was senile. Ninety-nine percent of the time.

The clang of Bucky's arm against the floor is immensely satisfying, but it's also somewhat of a wake up call. He considers what he's doing, considers the fact that Tom is gone and considers the fact that Bucky is now charging at him again.

His reflexes are fast, so he's quick to use his arms as shields against the tide of hits aimed at him. He manages to land a hit once or twice and eventually Thor loses patience and gives him a rough shove backward to get him out of range.

"He is gone!" He exclaims finally, gesturing at the place his Tom would be if he had one. He looks about wildly from Bucky, to the space and to Carlos and takes another step back so he can freely let out a growl of frustration.

Bucky backpedals, working to keep his balance and not go tumbling at the shove. At this point he's breathing more heavily, staring back at Thor through a curtain of dark tangled hair before the words that are being spoken trickle through the battle haze and he realises that Thor isn't fighting anymore.

Flicking his eyes to the place where Tom, where his target, should be makes him feel another bolt of irritation. He failed and that feeling cuts deep, worse than anything thanks to careful cultivation and conditioning by his HYDRA handlers.

"Which way?" the question is growled in Carlos' direction, who was watching the whole thing. He has to correct this.

It isn't Felicity who passes closest to him. It's Jet. At that moment, Tom realizes that he has two options, equally risky; either who could try and do hell unto a cyborg, knowing that the fight will likely end up one-on-three, or he could try and retreat, knowing they might pursue him anyway.

He trusts his gut instinct, which is to try and reduce the number of enemies as quickly as he can. He lunges forward out of the darkness, knife brandished, and plunges it into Jet's face from behind, hoping to hit brain (that's the only surefire vulnerability). He throws his arm around Jet's neck and clamps on, keeping the man from throwing him or falling forward, as a shield for just a moment before he makes his next move.

In all the adrenalin, in all the thrill, Tom's forgotten to try and keep careful track of the time between each lurch of the gravity controls. It's as if the air itself has plucked them up into its mouth, mulling them over in an invisible jaw, deciding whether to swallow them or retch them up and back onto the floor.

"Damn!" By fortune, the knife comes towards Tom after ricocheting off the wall, and he easily catches and palms it. Less fortunately, he finds that his last step, the one he made right before the gravity kicked out, has sent shockwaves through his bad leg, as if he stepped onto a place where he expected a stair and found nothing to support his weight. And it pushes him away from Grantaire, the two of them floating slowly away from each other.

"Brace yourself, lad..." Tom frowns, dispensing advice to the man he was so eager to kill mere moments ago. He's sure Grantaire knows what's going to come next: the unpleasant crash, gravity weighing twofold on their bodies as it slams them to the ground with the vindictiveness of a petty god. He could try and push off the nearest surface he hits and pursue Grantaire, but he worries now, with his leg throbbing, what will happen if the crash comes next with him not braced.

It's over in an instant yet seems to take an eon. In one instant Jet is laughing and playing pretend and in the next the interior of his skull is splattered on a long knife and the hand wielding it. Brain matter squeezes around the edges of the wound like toothpaste from its tube and it's not blood that accompanies it, but the viscous, darker colored fluid that's replaced it in his cybernetic body, something that send an acrid machine-shop sort of scent into the air, still metallic but more crude.

And it all happened right in front of Albert's face, leaving him flat-footed, slack-jawed, and unable to prevent the attack.

There's no scream of anguish, though it's clear in his eyes it's there, simply not voiced. Instead Albert's expression drops into sub-zero, all emotion drained from his expression and a frigid and eerie calm left in its wake as he surges forward, a long knife snapping out of his hand to be brandished at Tom as he goes.

Carlos's frustration had turned to genuine fear for a moment there -- for a second, he had been unsure of whether he could break them apart. But thank Goddard they're both seeing reason. He rubs his forehead with one hand.

"That way," he says, pointing down the hall with the other. "Thor, don't even think about going after him. Tom Cassidy is not the most important thing here."

It's an innocuous enough statement, but it's meant to remind Thor that this is an opportunity they can't afford to throw away on grudgewank.

It takes a second before Felicity even realizes what's happened, a second too long to do anything to help Jet. She realizes as much in an instant, that no matter what happens, there's no saving her friend. Instead, her instincts take over and she gives herself over to the goddess she'd committed herself to centuries ago. While Felicity has no magic of her own, she could swear the spirit and power of Artemis are guiding her as she draws her own dagger and darts around their assailant, intent on stabbing Tom quickly in the back.

Tom, he has decided, is a complicated man and not one he has any real interest in puzzling out right now. He takes his advice, what else can be done, and he tries to bring himself nearer to the floor, a long drop would be just one more unwelcome thing among the many he'd thus far endured.

The thought of even beginning to list them exhausted him, he was growing tired of all the complaints he had, piled high as some god forsaken barricade.

"Heard, noted, embraced even, if one can hope to practice it, God damn this farce, damn our audience double!" Grantaire bumped against the wall and moved too quickly, slapping his hand flat against the wall. It sent him spinning in the opposite direction and he cursed. The one bit of luck he suffered was that he was sent down instead of higher to the ceiling and so when the gravity returned just as abruptly as it had vanished the distance he had to fall was not nearly so bad as it could have been.

Small comfort when he still managed to bang his hip painfully upon the floor, pushing himself to his feet again with a pained groan, limping to put more distance between them.

Tom, despite trying to brace against the wall, doesn't make out quite as well when the gravity returns; he lands on his feet, but as soon as he does his knees buckle under the doubled weight of the faulty controls. When a half-second later physics return to normal, he's left wondering exactly what materials are in a human knee to destroy as he gingerly picks himself up.

It's agony, and he finds himself leaning against a wall to spread out his own bodyweight better. Were Grantaire within arm's reach right now, Tom would just stab him in the neck and be done with it, but the boy's a good few yards away and Tom isn't willing to take the steps - the physical steps - necessary to close the distance.

He'll be able to walk without pain soon, he hopes. After he sits here a while with his legs still and slightly elevated.

"You know, I think we should call it even, right here." He pulls the knife back out, flipping it in his hands as if daring Grantaire to try and claim he'd won. As if he's being so magnanimous. "If you want to walk, now's a good time for it."

Tom moves too quickly for Felicity's first blow to hit; he shoves Jet's corpse at his husband as a human hurdle and twists out of Felicity's way. The blade slips from Jet's eye, wetted on blood and brain and god only knows what else, sending a splattering wick across the wall. He throws a slash at Felicity's face, unaware if it hits, more concerned at the moment with putting a little distance between him and at least one of his enraged foes.

He gets a foot of space, and that's enough for him. He turns and he runs.

Thor tenses, shifting on his feet as if prepared to race Bucky when Carlos points him in the right direction. He lets out a loud breath, almost exactly like a petulant huff, when Carlos chides him. It's partly because he wants to fight him on it and partly because it's true and he knows it.

He squares his shoulders defiantly, not letting them slump whatsoever so he doesn't look half as petulant as he feels. He steps toward Carlos, but he moves past him and keeps walking. He says nothing to either of them, he just assumes Carlos is going to follow him.

Bucky says nothing either. He only nods once at Carlos before taking off at a run in the direction he pointed. Between him and Thor the target had been moderately injured, he shouldn't have got far by this point, Bucky can still kill him.

He's relieved when Thor doesn't follow, still full of anger at the Asgardian for his interference in the first place (and uncertain of his ability to stop him should they come to trading blows again). It doesn't matter though because despite his best efforts he won't find Tom again this arena, the chance has passed him by, leaving only frustration in its wake.

Albert's first instinct with Jet's body being flung at him is to catch. He does, with a heavy noise of covered metal striking the same and lets out a small sound of pain. It's not from being hit with the mess Tom had made of his husband, but instead a less concrete agony. Every time. Every time Jet goes out, before or after, whether he's there or not, it tears at it. It never gets easier, never less raw or less painful.

He takes long enough to lower Jet to the floor, to cover Jet's face - he can't leave his lover like that for the whole of Panem to gawk at - and steps back. His demeanor remains cold despite his tender handling of Jet in death, and the look he gives Felicity if she's still there with him is as cold and frigid as the void outside. His knife still extended, Albert snaps to attention and starts down the corridor through which Tom has fled, either after Felicity's lead or expecting her to follow in his wake.

Either way, Black Tom Cassidy has little time left to live.

And Carlos, of course, trails after Thor, relieved that that hadn't gone wore. More than anything else, he looks like a hapless owner being dragged along by a great big sulky dog.

He'll find out later, he supposes, if Bucky actually finds Tom. Right now, though, on Carlos's List of Worrying Things, Tom Cassidy is a minor annoyance. He has bigger fish to electrocute.

Tom's blade slices her cheek, a relatively superficial wound in light of the damage he'd done to Jet just seconds before. She doesn't hiss, doesn't scream. She doesn't even flinch. She's instead locked eyes with Albert, knowing that while Tom has drawn first blood, he's drawn it for the last time.

Albert needn't say a word. Felicity is at his side, sprinting after Tom at full speed, weapon still in hand. She's unbothered by the gash on her cheek, determined to catch up to the bastard and drive her knife into him.

Tom isn't fast enough. He realizes this belatedly, and feels almost as if he's been cheated by some cosmic first to have understood this only after waging an attack instead of trying to retreat. He's adequately judged Albert but Felicity- he could kick himself for underestimating the teenage girl who made it to the final week every Arena.

He turns a tight corner and, rather than trying to keep running, decides to stand and fight, using the blind fishtail of the corridor as a way to make a quick ambush. As soon as Felicity round the corner, he'll try and his her in the neck with his blade. He exhales through his nose and grips the handle of the knife tight, preparing to swing it at the person coming at him.

It's not hard for Felicity to gain distance on Albert. She's much lighter than he is with all his artillery built in, even when not loaded for bear. He is, however, hard to stop when he gets going, and virtually impervious to anything lower on the technological scale than a laser. Tom's shot on Jet was a lucky one; he'd hit the one place Albert's husband was vulnerable, but Albert himself? Even his skull is alloy.

But it means very little if he can't catch up with Felicity.

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In the Race Against Time, I'll Come Out a Winner [Open]

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shall the gravity give out?

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now is certainly a good time!

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Re: now is certainly a good time!

cw: blood/gore/gross death

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