thearena | Capture The Patch

Entry tags:

Capture The Patch

Who| Participants in the Patch-Capture game + their intended victims
What| Individuals and teams compete in an intense and potentially deadly game.
Where| First the cornucopia, then outwards through the arena.
When| Tuesday, Week 3
Warnings/Notes| Make your own threads, all are welcome to tag in. If your character is being killed during the game, please let the mods know! Also, D4 (Roland & Aang) will win the game! Congrats!

The hailstones on the ground have left pits in their wake. The area surrounding the cornucopia is a veritable waste from the storm the night before. But the summons have been issued, the challenge given, and there is a small number of Tributes who have heeded the call.

The participants are in their hiding spots, some perhaps visible, others not, all still and listening to the sounds of the wet and wintery world around them. Their silence is then interrupted by a booming voice, one which is audible to every Tribute across the Arena.

“Good morning to our fine competitors and thank you for joining us on this lovely day. You’ve all been given the rules, you all know what is expected of you. Whoever have the most patches by sunset will win a prize. And we promise, it’s a doozy! But no cheating, and no joining in the game after it’s started. The only ones who can win are the ones surrounding the Cornucopia right now.”

The voice gives a sinister laugh.

“When I say go, the game begins. No holds barred, kids. Let’s make it a fun show! Ready… Set… Go!”

And with that, the festivities begin!

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Roland leaps up and makes a show of trying to dart toward a few other tributes - tries to stay safely out of reach of weapons, though, and and retreats into the trees as soon as soon as it looks like he's made an honest go of it.

The plan he makes with Aang, once they meet and hastily talk things out, isn't complex enough to be called that, and will only work on those who don't expect it - Roland will lead tributes toward Aang, hiding in the trees, and Aang will flip down to steal their patch. Quick and painless for everyone, ideally, although Roland does not expect everything to go nearly so well as it's planned. Not everyone will be trying to injure as little as possible, for one, and thick branches can only hide so much. Roland's taken a few of the cords he'd woven from deer sinew in the arena's first couple weeks and strung them low between a few certain trees, made sure to keep a few sharp shale stones in his pockets, but beyond that he'll have to trust his own ability and hope it'll be enough to keep either of them from getting hurt.

Still. Needs must. And the needs of his little team, here, are to keep things interesting for the monsters back in the Capitol who decide just how long their stay in Panem is going to be.

So Roland sets out, looking near and around the Cornucopia. When he finds a tribute he'll lunge toward them right away, reaching toward the shoulder of their jacket but really looking to see if they're going to pull out weapons. Because like any of Panem's 'games', chances are this one is going to get deadly.

[If you want either Aang or Roland or both at once, please do say. Otherwise Roland will be herding them toward Aang's hiding place, at which point Aang will join the thread. Any questions or concerns, feel free to pm either of us!]

Edited 2015-02-18 00:55 (UTC)

Arya stands a little way back, hidden behind a mound of snow she'd built up the night before just for this purpose. Her knife is gripped tightly in one hand, and the other is placed over her forehead to shield her eyes from the glare of the snow. She's not sure exactly what her strategy should be here - ideally she'd wait until they were asleep and sneak in and steal the patches from the clothes without them ever knowing, but that wasn't an option here. She can only hope that the other Tributes will get caught up with trying to get the patches from each other that they'll be distracted and won't notice her dart in to take them.

Gary is too invested in the game to decide if this snowbank he's creeping past was artificially constructed or not. All he knows is that the Cornucopia is very quiet for a place that should be a fun free-for-all and that Haruto will probably yell at him for breaking that quiet, so stealth, or some semblance thereof, is the way to go here. Which seems strange to him, given the circumstances; with Haruto at his side and Combeferre and Courfeyrac covering the other end of the clearing, Gary feels that his District is bound to win, nigh invincible. Nothing bad can happen to them today, not when he's in such a good mood.

Haruto likely isn't, though. Gary decides to help lift his spirits, and aims a nudge at his shoulder while they crouch and sift through the snow. "They're scared, I bet," he whispers with an encouraging, conspiring smile. "What's the plan, man? How do we flush 'em out?"

Haruto is not scared, though he is tense as hell and indeed in a less than good mood. All the cold, nights of poor sleep, and bad diet are making it really, really hard to keep up the image of the carefree got-it-under-control wizard that he likes to convince others that he is. But he is trying. He would have to be dead to stop trying, and dying is not on the schedule for today, as far as he's concerned. That shoulder nudge from Gary gets a reflexive one back, and then several moments of pause before he thinks to speak.

"They should be. I think we're the biggest team working." Four from District 11, come together to show everyone that they are far more competent than the last Arena indicated... he sort of liked the sound of that. That was encouraging. "I don't think there's much here to flush out. Not out in the open." He has a fleeting thought that they might well draw someone out, shuffling around in the snow like idiots and whispering in stage voices, but.... no, no, that's silly. And they wouldn't be so lucky.

She knows she can't stay hidden in the snow forever. Tom's the only other Tribute competing for District Ten, and she hasn't come across him since before the game started. She risks poking her head over the top of her snow mound, her eyes darting to and fro to try to establish the location of the others participating before quickly diving back down.

The others are directly in front of her, but that's about to change for the worse if Gary has his way. "We can hide in that snow drift there," he says, motioning to the one Arya is hiding behind (possibly at the same time that she looks over it--Gary has his back turned and doesn't see). "You know--leap out when they come by. Grab-and-bag, that kind of thing."

"That one?" Haruto turns his head to see where Gary is indicating, and yes, it's just in time to see something indistinct ducking behind it. Looks like someone already had Gary's idea. His eyes widen, and he mouths, confident that Gary will be able to understand, 'someone's there'. And then he starts wading through the snow again, making a motion for Gary to follow.

"That's not a bad idea. Cut and run? All we need is the patch, right?" That wading is taking them closer to the indicated drift, though. He is not just going to stand around and let someone sneak up on them... but he's trying not to be too obvious about it at the same time. They're just taking a casual stroll on through, that's all...

Even with them trying to be casual, it's impossible to miss the crunch of footsteps on the snow. As they get nearer, louder, Arya tries to calculate the distance between her hiding spot and the tree line, knowing that even if whoever's approaching hasn't seen her yet, she'll be hard to miss if they come right up to the snow mound. She debates a little too long, and she makes a dash for it when she knows she's too close to make it there safely.

Gary doesn't catch the hint at first. "Yeah, that one. What are you--?" He squints in confusion and passes a quick glance over his shoulder. Something to do with the snowdrift? Well really there's only one relevant thing that could be going on there. A moment later it suddenly clicks, Gary mouths a quiet 'oh' and his face splits in a mischievous grin.

"I think so," he nods, shuffling along as directed. He doesn't hear anything from the other side of the drift, so either the person hiding there is very good at moving silently or they're too scared to move. Some adrenaline-induced paranoid excitement convinces Gary that it's the former. "No need to hurt anyone, right? Quick and painless, nothing to worry about..."

His pace quickens, too impatient to continue stalking in the last few strides. A third set of footsteps abruptly breaks the tension; Gary sprints ahead with an enthusiastic whoop of laughter and dives around the drift to grab her.

Haruto is the last person to wind up breaking into a run, because he's surprised by the short dashing figure and by Gary's sudden enthusiasm. "Hey!" The protest just jumps out of him, and he's not sure if its meant to be at Gary for being Gary or the runner for running.

He's plowing past Gary as fast as he can, following Arya. That's one more patch getting away. That's a shot at safety for his friends in his District. He's feeling pretty damn motivated right now.

She doesn't dare look back to see who's following her, knowing it would lose her precious seconds, hearing Haruto's footsteps crunching toward her in the snow, getting closer and closer. She reaches the edge of the clearing and leaps at the nearest tree, trying to scrabble up the trunk, but the branches are all too high for her to reach and she slips back down, looking all around for any means of escape.

Gary is fully prepared to pursue her up the tree, only to watch as she falls back down the trunk again. No skin off his nose, of course--he just wants to catch her. Gary bounds to the base of the tree and jumps to grab her on the way. Hopefully Haruto didn't have the same idea.

"Gotcha!"

Haruto had been gaining and had been preparing to leap and scale that tree himself. It quite nearly ends with him plowing into them both, but he manages to plant his feet and skid to a stop, then hastily side-step to try and cut off a possible route of escape. Does Gary have her? He can't tell, he's not sure, but he's getting out his knife anyway because that patch needs to be sliced off, doesn't it?

In the heat of the moment he does not realize how this might come across.

She's almost there when she feels a grip tighten around her arm, and she skids to a halt, snow flying everywhere as she does so. She tries to wriggle free but she's smaller and lighter than her captors, and she knows that brute force isn't going to help her here. Her eyes widen as she sees the knife in Haruto's hand, and she raises her own in response.

"Let go of me!"

Success! Gary lets out another triumphant bark of a laugh; there's something entirely too playful about his expression, all wide and bright like an excitable dog invited to wrestle, which is just about how he's interpreting the situation at that point. It's all still a game to him. Just a friendly, somewhat aggressive game of tag, but a game nevertheless.

That is, until the knives come out.

"Wha--Woah!" Jesus, where did that come from? Gary looks in panic at the dagger in Arya's hand, then his head swings to Haruto and he's even more distressed by the fact that he's got one out, too. This is all escalating very quickly, Gary has no idea how to handle this, and maybe because of that he doesn't think to let go of Arya's arm. Instead, he tries to reach over and grab her other hand with the knife. "Careful!"

"We just... hey!" Haruto was going to try and somehow de-escalate the situation, or at least shout something about how he totally just wanted her patch and had no intention of killing her, but Gary.... what was Gary doing? "No!" He may not know nearly as much as he should about fighting, but you don't grab for someone's weapon like that.

All Arya sees is Gary lunging for her knife, and while he'd have to grab the blade to get the weapon from her, he'd probably manage it - she's aware that her small stature and physical weakness are her biggest disadvantages in the Arena. The only outcome she can see is both of them being armed against her, unless she acts quickly. She tightens her grip on the blade, swiping for him when he reaches over to her.

The blade in his hand is what Gary notices first. It's a little knife, wielded by an equally little person, but it cuts through his glove like it's not even there and slices deep into his palm. Gary recoils as soon as he feels the sting--not fast enough to avoid the counter-swipe. There are no faster-than-a-speeding-bullet reflexes to save him this Arena. The dagger makes a clean diagonal line across his hip, opposite where the sabertooth carved out his side a week earlier, but catches on the zipper of his parka before it can do worse damage.

Damage control is not what Gary is thinking about right now. All he feels is the burn in his abdomen, all he sees is the bright spatter of his own blood flicked from the tip of the blade, and he panics. Gary yelps and staggers backwards, flailing his arms blindly ahead to strike her away.

"Gary!" It all happens too quickly for Haruto to stop, but he's already in motion because he has to do something. As blood spatters across the snow and as Gary recoils, he springs in and puts himself between his district-mate and the girl, giving a threatening-looking but purposely misaimed swing. Even in the middle of all this he does not want to hurt a kid. Even if the kid is armed dangerous. He's armed and dangerous, too. Maybe that'll dissuade her.

Arya dodges out of the way of his swing, sliding across a thick layer of packed snow and ice. She struggles to steady herself, then twists herself back around, unsure whether to run or stand her ground. She opts to try to get behind them, giving her a few more seconds to decide either way depending on how they reacted.

Gary doesn't like that things are happening so quickly. Things aren't supposed to happen too fast for him to process. He should feel on top of things, even if he doesn't know exactly what's going on. How does he do that, normally? The superhuman reflexes play into that, of course, but that's not what Gary thinks of first. He thinks about how he normally doesn't have to think, how his reactions just come to him and he lets his instincts guide his actions and take him to where he needs to go. It's an easy fallback. Gary takes it.

Naturally, his first instinct is to run. Gary spins on his heel to go the other way, only to find himself intercepted by their young assailant. That leaves the sides.

"Split!" Gary cries, and without giving himself or his partner the chance to think about his reasoning, he sprints through the trampled snow and makes for the deeper woods.

The ice beneath the snow is not helping matters for anyone. Gary's call to 'Split!' is a good one, but Haruto's efforts to recover from his swing and turn to keep Arya from getting behind him results in him losing his footing as well. He doesn't flat out fall, but he does go to one knee, and he most certainly isn't splitting.

There's a part of her that's telling her it isn't right to keep on after them, when one is running and the other has lost his footing, but she knows that the Arena isn't the sort of place she can show that sort of mercy: they'd probably come back after her again once they'd regrouped, now they'd managed to get on each other's bad side. She lunges toward Haruto, dagger poised and ready to strike, knowing she needs to end this now or become prey to both of them later on.

It takes a moment for Gary to start thinking again. He saw, vaguely from the corner of his eye, Haruto take a spill in the snow--which means Arya could still have a chance to strike at him. Suddenly this is no longer a case of 'split up and hope for the best,' this is, 'my friend is alone and in serious danger,' the ill-fated vacation with his aunt and brother all over again. He is in a unique position here to help. Maybe it's not such a good idea without backup or a proper weapon and a profusely-bleeding badge already, but Gary's never been one to make informed decisions anyways.

There's a noticeable gap between when Arya turns on Haruto and Gary returns to the scene. He comes in from behind, charging from the undergrowth...only to succumb to the slippery conditions like everyone else. Gary tries to pull it off as intentional, reaching out to grab Arya and take her down with him.

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Capture The Patch

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Rolling back in after losing the notif....

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