thearena | Underneath It All, We're Just Savages [Closed]

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Underneath It All, We're Just Savages [Closed]

WHO| Tom and Luke and Beth, Tom and the Psiioniic, Tom and Albert and Arya
WHAT| Tom gets injured during the patch game, kills a troll, and runs afoul of a cyborg.
WHERE| Throughout the forest near the lake.
WHEN| Week 3-4
WARNINGS| Death and violence.

I. Luke and Beth

The patch-capture seems almost quaint, the juxtaposition of the playful nature of the rules and the murderous stakes of the winnings as comical and twee as the cross between a death festival and the name "Hunger Games". Tom finds no small amount of amusement in it, and by early morning has convinced Arya to take part in it with him. The two of them sweep their way through the forest, the portrait of amiability. If it weren't for the knife that Tom carries in his palm, playing idly with, and the matching one that Arya's equipped with, they might look like a man taking his granddaughter for a stroll through a particularly wet and clammy winter.

That is, of course, until they hear others in the wood. From there they hunker down, alert, predatory, near hungry despite having been fed many times over from the generous Sponsor gifts and Molotov's hunts. At the moment there are figures moving through a snowy dell north of them, and to the east of them in the marsh.

"You manage the ones up north, will you, lass? We'll rendezvous here when the sun sets." He watches Arya go, impressed time and again with the girl's spunk and competence, before heading towards the marsh, keeping careful track of which trees he's passing so he can find his way back here when dusk comes. He could follow his footprints, but he doesn't trust the Gamemakers not to change them. They likely could change the trees too, but that seems more effort than would be useful. He's sure the Gamemakers find his rapport with Arya charming at best, harmless at worst.

He sees a blonde head of hair in the marsh, and he doesn't announce his presence. He pulls the knife out and moves near-silently through the snow-weighted bushes behind her.

II. Psiioniic and III. Albert and Arya

The end of the patch game really means very little to Tom; he plans to continue as he has with Molotov and Arya, and has put in his best effort not to let the stab wound in his shoulder slow him down. It's difficult, of course - the swelling has made it hard to sleep or to properly grip a knife with his right hand - but he only complains when Molotov's ears are sympathetic. As soon as Molotov mentions that they haven't done all that much killing this Arena, Tom shuts right up and sulks at the corner of their camp like a wet cat.

It's this insecurity, this gutting knowledge of his own uselessness, that drives him to spend longer each day looking for someone to kill and rob. It doesn't sit well with him to be both in pain and without an earned reputation to soothe it, nor does it settle peacefully in his stomach to have had such an uneventful Arena. He goes into the woods with his blade and a cudgel fashioned from a felled tree, made almost entirely unrecognizable by a ski mask and his heavy parka, hat and scarf.

He sees someone hunched over a part of the river that hasn't frozen over, collecting water, and he slips forward, looking not entirely unlike a panther moving through jungle reeds. He hopes to be silent, but the ground under him has different ideas for him.

As soon as the ice beneath his feet crackles and announces his presence, he swings the cudgel at his victim's head like a baseball bat.

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Psii had volunteered himself to run errands, since his cavemates were both injured. He took only his knives, parka, some of his reed-woven rope, and a fire-starting kit in case something prevented him from returning to shelter.

Psii was on alert for enemies, but he still didn't expect anyone to get this close before he noticed. If the ice hadn't announced Tom's presence, Psii would have been out in an instant. Psii ducked at the sound. The cudgel caught his horn, cracking it, and Psii's head split with pain. He cried out, dropping the leftover food packaging he was using as a water holder and hurling himself to the side on instinct. His parka kept him warm enough to still be somewhat fast.

His eyes watered as his head rang, but he was too busy drawing the stone knife at his hip. He scuttled towards the shore where there was less chance of being thrown in the water. Psii was tall, but not a heavyweight. It was hard to tell where exactly the shore was, given the snow. His eyes were wide, not from fear, but from a subconscious wish to optic blast his attacker. His dark lips peeled back from his fangs as he hissed, brandishing his knife.

It occurred to him to try intimidating the human away now that the element of surprise was gone, but it didn't occur to him to try talking his way out of a fight. He wasn't a pacifist; he was an overly paranoid troll covered in a map of scars. Violence was commonplace for him, and death was cheap.

The impact of the cudgel against the Psiioniic's horn sends a shock up Tom's wrists and elbows, but he's anticipating that, and he's already ready to throw another blow at Psiioniic by the time the troll pulls the stone knife. By fortune and happenstance, Psiioniic throws himself out of the range of Tom's swing, and that keeps Tom from making this a clean kill.

Which does not, in fact, dissuade him. Psiioniic snarls and Tom responds with a near-hungry grin, as if he's been waiting for this a long time, as if he's been the villain so long that playing the role feels like slipping into a warm bath. It's here, in the midst of cruelty, that he sheds any shame he might have for what he is. It's here, with his hands tight around a weapon and his blood pounding away through his veins and an enemy at his hands.

He advances on the Psiioniic, voice nearly a sing-song with that thick accent and that heat of battle.

"A charming knife. Did you carve it yourself?"

Even though Psii had ventured out to get water and hunt, Psii thought like prey. He'd always been on the receiving end of violence, and couldn't stop his instincts screaming at him to hide or run. Of course, neither of those were an option now. He had shitty shoes and no hope of breaking this guy's line of sight long enough to disappear. He was so boned.

Psii was vaguely aware that he wouldn't be able to dodge around here for long. He had no way of knowing where sure footing was, where the ice ended and the water began. The man grinned with relish, something that put Psii in mind of either cruel highbloods or a particularly rough kismesis.

"....Ith thith really the time to be throwing falthe complimentth at my shitty knife crafting abilitieth? Are you actually trying to kill me?"

Psii never could learn to keep his mouth shut for long.

"I'm trying to amuse myself."

Even if Tom weren't playing up the part of a ruthless killer for Capitol cameras, he would still be perfectly pleased to taunt, to play with his prey like a cat with a mouse. He grins and the shadows on the side of his mouth become like jagged arrowheads.

He doesn't swing this time, but thrusts the cudgel towards the Psiioniic's middle.

"Your copiouth fathe hairth are already amuthing enough, I really don't think you need to try any harder," he grit his teeth.

Psii had an instinct for knowing when he was totally fucked, and that was when the sass kicked in. It didn't matter if he held his tongue, he was going to get beaten up anyway. Why did he have to go and get water? Why did he have to fail so spectacularly at not being seen?

He stepped back on reflex, and his foot sunk through snow and the hidden ice underneath it. Cold water burned his foot and spread up his leg. His shitty boots, already worn from weeks of snow, didn't protect him in the slightest. He stumbled and fell on the snowy shore. He'd plowed through pain many times before, but he couldn't get his numb foot to cooperate. He never thought he could outrun the guy anyway.

He hissed. In desperation, he lobbed his stone knife at Tom, and whipped out the smaller folding knife in his jacket pocket.

"I'm sorry you're too young to cultivate a proper mustache."

As soon as Psiioniic stumbles, Tom lunges in for the kill. He dodges the knife thrown at him easily, with a sort of grace that doesn't seem to match his usual limp - that makes it seem almost affected, by comparison.

He throws blow after blow at Psiioniic's head, mouth wide with a grin that seems nearly fanged.

Psii never gave a shit about being either proper or mustachioed. He was, in the words of his "betters," uncouth lowblood trash. Unfortunately for him, he didn't get a chance to speak after the cudgel found its mark again and again.

His opponent seemed to have overcome the awkwardness of his limp, working with it to beat Psii to a pulp. Psii jabbed futilely with his smaller knife, but a clip to the head sent blood streaming down his face into his eyes. Blind, he could only throw his arms up in defense. His second knife slipped from his hand into the snow now peppered with dark yellow blood.

Trolls took a few extra hits before they could go down. Even with the pain of several broken bones, Psii struggled in the snow. Only when he bled enough to impair motot functions did he finally stay put, wheezing with each hit.

Tom doesn't stop until Psii is well and beaten. Once he's managed the first blow, it becomes apparent - to the cameras and to the troll he's bludgeoning - that he's drawing this out, that he's enjoying the strange-colored blood and the exertion and the crumpling of bone and joints under his club. He doesn't have the desperate frenzy of someone who doesn't know what he's doing, but rather the cruel brutality of someone who could finish the job but is purposefully choosing to aim for pain rather than efficiency.

Finally, he stops, not from exhaustion or mercy but because he's become bored with this, because he feels the injury done to him (the insult) has been adequately repaid and he would really like to get back to Molotov before it's dark. He considers waiting for the cannon, but his clothes are wet with Psiioniic's blood and melted snow, and so he decides instead to opt for assuming that if Psiioniic survives this it'll be an earned miracle.

"Never seen one bleed that color before," Tom says, kicking at the Psiioniic's face. And with that, he limps his way back into the trees.

The second the cudgel does swinging, Albert throws up his arm to block it and sweeps the water container with his other hand, sending frigid snowmelt across Tom's body. The crack on the ice had merely been a warning to the other man's strike. His approach on the other hand, Albert had been aware of for a short while. The older man's pale eyes may not be adjusting well to the brightness of the sun on snow, but his hearing more than makes up for it and always has, especially when he's actively listening to what's going on around him. It would be foolish not to in the Arena.

It's a welcome realization that his attacker is Tom Cassidy, though, made apparent by the mustache peeking through the gaps between the scarf and ski mask. Albert won't have any inner moral dilemma over the resulting fight at least.

The blow of the cudgel against his metal arm is jarring to Albert's flesh and blood shoulder but it still stops the weapon, allowing the cyborg to twist in such a way that will send it sliding off his cuff. The water will do little, unless he got lucky and it seeped into the parka, but he's quick to bring the metal bottle up and aim a blow to the man's face on the heels of his first useless counterattack.

He was expecting - hoping - for the cudgel to hit Albert in the back of the head, for the jolt rushing up his arms from the collision to be the familiar padded crack of wood on a skull rather than a clang of metal. As it stands, the shock nearly knocks the club from his hands, which are numbed now as if they were pressed to an electrical circuit.

He barely has time to notice that before there's water coming at his face. Anticipation quickly turns to irritation, then to rage at seeing it's Albert again, one of the trio that so wrenched victory from his grasp last time.

He takes the water to the side of his face, in one eye. He gives a cry of anger and surprise and shoves the end of the cudgel at Albert's stomach - a place he believes to lack the metal protection.

There are very few people who even in the Arena put Albert on the attack and Tom is one of the unlucky few. Were he most anyone else Albert would seek self defense and an escape, actively attacking only as a feint for those goals. Tom, though, Tom gets the lock of Albert's eyes, cold as the snow still piled in the landscape around them.

Which disappears briefly as the cyborg closes his eyes in a flinch at the blow to his stomach that sends him sliding backwards, trying to catch his balance and regain air in his lungs both at once. He doesn't fall, thankfully sliding back to the edge of the ice and hitting mucky slush, but his breathing is still labored for a moment as he reaches into his boot for the hunting knife Jet insists either of them take when they venture from the cave. It's out in a flash and Albert holds it in front of himself, silent and watching for Tom's next move.

Or for an opening.

Tom gives very few openings, because he's a combatant and a killer and he's had thirty years of experience with these matters. A cudgel is his favored weapon, and his onslaught is fairly relentless, pushing Albert back towards the slush and water. He throws a few blows towards Albert's arm, trying to get a hit to the wrist that'll disarm him, but it's for no luck.

"No little girl to help you this time, Heinrich!"

But he does settle back awkwardly on that one leg for a moment, giving Albert not a chance to stab but maybe to knock over.

Against someone fully human, blows to the arms would undoubtedly work coming from Tom. He's strong, and though bludgeoning lacks finesse in general he clearly knows where and how to hit. But Albert's wrists are metal and he doesn't have the same reaction to impact as a human hand. There are no tendons to snap or bones to crush and wood can only go so far against alloy.

Yet the pressed attack isn't fruitless, Albert is still driven backwards, though luckily near parallel to the water instead of directly towards it. He'll still land in the drink eventually if Tom keeps up, but instead the ice makes it difficult for both of them and Tom missteps, giving Albert an award shot that if he were playing it safe he wouldn't take. But seeing as he's soon to lose any advantage he may have felt he had, Albert takes his chance.

At the wobble on ice, Albert turns his shoulder and shoves under Tom's arm like a linebacker, hoping to at least knock the man down if not make him drop the club. Of course, it puts him in an easy position to be knocked down too and send both men into a struggling heap.

Albert's shove hits home, but the slide of the ice drags them both down. The cudgel goes sliding from Tom's hand, making a rackety noise as it clatters over the ice. Both he and Albert go down from the tackle with a crunch and a splash as the ice under Tom's back cracks, as the icewater of the shallows splashes and pools up around them.

Tom kicks and shoves, suddenly fierce as a weasel in a trap, knowing that he's lost any advantage he may have started with. His hand, looking near as white as the snow in the cold, grapples for Albert's face, for his eyes, for his throat. His eyes reflect that same colorlessness, rolling with the impact and the shock of the temperature and squeezed tight by the snarl on his face.

He's aware throughout this that for a second time, he may be the victim of this same man he's tried to kill.

Edited 2015-03-10 21:39 (UTC)

She'd heard the crack of the ice and assumed that someone had gone straight under, though whether it was someone trying to attack them or an animal that had tried to cross the lake and misjudged the thickness of the icy surface. It's that wariness that means she doesn't come running immediately, instead loading the gun as Tom had taught her and making sure her knife was in her belt before tentatively poking her head around a tree. When she sees Tom and Albert struggling together in the shallow water, the vicious intent to kill in both of their eyes, she knows she needs to do something, or in a few short seconds the man who's protected her in the Arena would be dead and she'd soon follow.

She tries to aim for Albert but she's still a complete novice when it comes to firearms, and the shot goes wide by a long way. She hopes the noise of the gunshot is enough to get them to pause, at least.

In that, at least, Arya is correct. The gunshot makes Albert pause mentally but with Tom trying to get his thumbs in the cyborg's eye sockets it takes him some serious effort to break away considering the dive into freezing water wrested the air from his lungs for an interminable moment. His arms and legs may be unfeeling, but his core is still organic and susceptible to cold.

And bullets.

He struggles away from Tom, trying to shove him down even has he breaks away, clawing for the icy bank and attempting to heave himself from the water with his hair hanging in his eyes like snow-covered moss.

Tom's head goes under the water, and though he emerges only a moment later, the shock to his sinuses and the way it's blinded him with his hair and eyelashes gives him enough reason to not try to attack Albert as the cyborg hoists himself up out of the water.

He shoves himself backwards, towards the shore, onto the river rocks and harder ice, sopping wet and pale, looking like a half-melted candle with water running down his face. He swivels towards the gunshot.

"Arya! Don't come close, he's dangerous!" It doesn't matter whether he means it or not. He hopes it gives Albert enough pause for him and Arya to escape.

"I don't need to come close," she calls back, steadying her feet in the snow and bringing the gun up for another shot. She doesn't shoot just yet, with them both scrabbling about there she's afraid she'll hit Tom by mistake, but she keeps the gun trained on Albert, hoping that combined with the previous shot she'd fired off would be enough of a warning.

"You're more likely to hurt yourself with that gun than me, girl. And Tom, you're the one who kills unsuspecting children in the Arena, not me. Or have you not told her about the food court?" He growls, but he keeps what distance he's taken. True, Arya has terrible aim, but that can sometimes be more dangerous than a professional, and the last thing he needs now is a bullet wound. As it is if he doesn't get dry soon he'll catch his death.

If he's lucky, Tom actually will.

"Don't let me find you again, Cassidy. Using a child as a shield won't work a second time."

"Arya understands the purpose of an Arena, Heinrich. Don't you, lass?" Tom drags himself from the water, shivering slightly, soaked, miserable but looking angry rather than sorrowful for it. He takes a few steps until he's at Arya's side.

"Next time I won't let you be so lucky as to use ice to your advantage." He places a waxy hand on Arya's shoulder. "Thank you for the assistance, dear. Let's be gone now."

It's not until Tom's back at her side that she lowers the gun, still gripping it tightly but taking her finger from the trigger. While she's no stranger to killing, she's always had to strike opportunistically rather than engaging in that sort of stand off, and now that she's out of the situation she feels her heart pounding and her hands shaking, and she's unsure whether she'd have got a decent shot if she'd had to shoot to kill. It annoys her more than anything else - she resolves to practice with the gun as much as she can so that the strangeness of the weapon isn't an added factor there too.

"What did he mean?"

"In a prior Arena, I set fire to a food court - a gathering area for people to eat." He figures that much is explanatory, but it doesn't hurt to clarify things for Arya, so he can detail the picture before others get the chance to add to it. "There were some wee ones there, unbeknownst to me, and his lot has seen fit to label me a hunter of children ever since."

He lets her keep the gun, knowing she won't use it on him but that she may benefit from feeling a bit safer in the face of uncertainty, of her image of him being distorted by new information.

On the one hand Arya's fairly certain there's no smoke without fire, but on the other Albert probably would have said anything to get either Tom or Arya off guard. She knows that in the Arenas, realistically of course adults would have to go after children, but she can't help but think of the Hound murdering Mycah so brutally. She's not sure exactly how she feels - and she finds that hard in itself, liking to cling to clear cut explanations and emotions rather than anything she has to see multiple sides of.

"Killing children is wrong," she says, more to reaffirm it to herself than to lecture him. "But it's even more wrong for the Capitol to throw them into an Arena if they can't defend themselves."

"Aye, I won't argue with either of those points." Although he's killed plenty of children here in the Arenas. "I try to think that it's better to kill them kindly than let the weak ones suffer, that for those of us in this situation we can only choose between wrongs rather than huddle in a righteous shelter. Do you understand?"

He's shivering, still sopping and cold, and he starts to trudge back towards their lair, shrugging off his jacket. "We best be getting back, dear."

Arya grits her teeth, thinking of all the weak and innocent she'd seen suffer and die. She had no qualms about killing, but only those she felt deserved it, though she nods reluctantly anyway. She supposes that if they were going to die anyway, she'd rather end their lives quickly herself. "I understand," she says reluctantly. "But I don't like it."

She begins to follow him back towards their encampment, brooding on everything. Enough people had warned her not to trust Tom by now that it's difficult for her to do so, though she also knew that not only was he her best chance of survival, but there was a great deal she could learn from him to become stronger. And if she achieved nothing else here, she was determined to become strong enough to kill everyone on her list singlehandedly when she returned to her own world.

With so many people in their group, it's always a struggle to keep everyone fed. She knows that Daryl and Rick want her to stay behind, they try to tell her that they'll look out for her like they always do. But Beth doesn't want that, she wants to be able to pull her weight. And she does, gathering water and whatever animals she can possibly hunt with some snares that Daryl taught her and a knife.

She's been taught to keep her guard up, but the whistling of the wind makes for a great distraction, and she doesn't quite notice the man approaching her until it's nearly too late. Beth's shriek echoes in the landscape around her, hand already going for her own knife. Maybe not fast enough, though.

There’s no mistaking the intent sharpening every line of the stranger’s body when Luke emerges from a dense line of trees and sees that predatory crouch, slow, stalking steps silenced by the snow-dampened hush. Something he almost feels like he was unmeant to catch until he notices someone further ahead, blond hair bouncing with every careful step. Then a flash of a profile he knows too well.

His eyes widen.

By the time her scream lances through his guts he’s already closing the distance between them, his body a live-wire thrumming with hot blood and adrenaline and purpose. It’s too late to warn her – but not too late to try snapping his arms around her would-be attacker in an attempted headlock.

In the thrill of the hunt Tom's become careless. He's so focused on getting that knife into Beth's throat that he doesn't address the crashing in the reeds behind him until it's too late to dodge the man entirely. The knife, unwetted by blood, drops into the water with a 'plop' that seems meek and fails to rise above the sound of struggle as Tom throws himself forward, trying to break Luke's headlock.

Tom's the more muscular of the two. It isn't just a matter of build, although Tom's in peak fitness for a man his age, and it isn't just skill in combat. There's something about survival that makes a body lean and efficient, as if cutting away anything that isn't an absolute necessity, but it's not the same as someone who fights for luxury, who never lets indulgence soften them up because they're always chasing the next thrill, the next girl, the next paycheck. Some people are meant to rove not out of circumstance but out of a sort of innate restlessness, a dissatisfaction with everything that they fail to realize is their train and not part of the environment.

Tom's one of those people. Like a pup he fights for the teat of opulence and drains it dry. And so he fights here with neither morals nor fear, grabbing the side of Luke's head, his ear, and yanking to try and pull the man off him, willing to beat him to death with his fists if he has to.

Edited 2015-03-06 22:04 (UTC)

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Underneath It All, We're Just Savages [Closed]

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